By Nikko Balbedina
PressOne.PH
UPDATE: As of February 7, 2024, PressOne.PH has identified a total of 119 accounts and 1481 tweets.

A network of pro-China X (formerly Twitter) accounts has been actively running a strategic campaign against President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and the Philippines’s efforts in the disputed West Philippine Sea, while simultaneously boosting content in favor of Vice President Sara Duterte.
The accounts posted identical content, including screenshots or snippets of the fake “polvoron” video falsely depicting Marcos using illegal drugs, three Chinese-language blog posts criticizing US involvement in Philippine maritime affairs, and two news stories featuring Vice President Sara Duterte, who has kept mum on the West Philippine Sea dispute while criticizing the president.
Since November 2024, PressOne.PH has been monitoring the network, tracking its campaign alongside key political events, including Marcos Jr.’s signing of maritime laws and congressional probes into alleged fund misuse in offices headed by Duterte.
As of this writing, nearly a hundred X accounts exhibiting patterns of coordination have been identified, a quarter of which have Chinese usernames. Collectively, the network has generated some 770 tweets featuring identical content shared across the accounts.
The account usernames follow a suspicious pattern: a generic first name, the first three letters of a supposed surname, and a series of numbers. Meanwhile, a reverse image search of their profile pictures reveal that some were sourced from advertisements, AI-generated images, pornography, or from other social media accounts.
This influence campaign extends beyond Philippine politics, potentially fostering division and weakening the country’s stance on the West Philippine Sea amid a critical midterm election.
Marcos Jr. attacked following passage of maritime laws
PressOne.PH first caught wind of the network on Nov. 11 when it circulated the “polvoron” video following Marcos Jr.’s signing of the Philippine Maritime Zones Act and the Philippine Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act—two laws that reinforce the country’s authority over its waters and align domestic policy with international maritime standards.
The images were tweeted separately by 25 X accounts, each with the caption “#Marcos,Drug Abuser#” and featuring the same screenshot with the Filipino text “NAPANOOD KO NA” (“I have watched this”) within a four-minute window, from 10:49 a.m. to 10:53 a.m.
Screenshot of a tweet repeatedly posted by the Chinese-named accounts.
Further investigation, however, revealed that similar tweets, including those featuring the full footage, were posted a total of 155 times prior to the Nov. 11 coordinated event, spanning May 28 to Nov. 4, 2024.
Apart from the attack on X, the signing of the legislative measures was also met with immediate criticism from Chinese state-owned media outfit China Daily, which had been the subject of multiple investigations by PressOne.PH and other Philippine news organizations for spreading pro-Beijing content regarding the West Philippine Sea row on social media.
Chinese accounts resurface fake ‘Polvoron’ video on X after Marcos Jr. signs Maritime Zones Law
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On multiple instances, it labeled the move by the Philippines as a means of “stirring up controversy” and making “illegal” claims over the Scarborough Shoal and the Spratly Islands.
In a video posted by their affiliate TikTok channel MediaUnlocked, which PressOnePH has previously and repeatedly reported on and fact-checked, China Daily falsely and baselessly claimed that the laws enacted by Manila were inconsistent with the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (Unclos).
Sans evidence, MediaUnlocked reporter Meng Zhe asserted that the “Philippines is claiming maritime zones in areas that don’t belong to them,” alleging an attempt to override international law with local legislation.
A China Daily editorial piece then claimed the laws were meant to “illegally” claim the Scarborough Shoal and Spratly Islands, omitting that both features fall well within the Philippines’ 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone prescribed by the same international law that they referenced.
Shortly after the passage of these laws, a network of 25 X accounts with Chinese usernames, all created in September 2024, began circulating a debunked “polvoron” video falsely showing Marcos Jr. using illegal drugs. These accounts, along with three others using English-language names, posted identical screenshots of the video with captions branding the Philippine president a “drug abuser.”
Additionally, the accounts simultaneously reposted Chinese-language news articles that criticized US involvement in Philippine maritime activities and accused Washington of “making trouble in the South China Sea.” The resurgence of the “polvoron” smear campaign mirrored earlier attempts in July to damage Marcos Jr.’s reputation amid rising tensions between Manila and Beijing.

Screenshots of three separate Chinese news blog posts amplified by the network that criticized US involvement in Philippine maritime activities in the disputed waters.
Duterte-related content amplified by the same network
In addition to targeting Marcos Jr., the same network of Chinese-linked accounts actively shared links to news stories covering the vice president’s offensive stance against the Marcos administration.
This coordinated activity centered on two key news reports: an Aug. 8 Rappler article in which Duterte criticized the administration and an Aug. 10 Philstar report where she made comments referencing cash, illegal drugs, and partying potentially aimed as indirect criticisms of Marcos Jr.
Screenshots of accounts tweeting links to the Rappler and Philstar.com reports on Vice President Sara Duterte.
Posts featuring these Duterte-related stories began surfacing on Aug. 16, the same day her brother, Davao Rep. Paolo Duterte, her husband Manases Carpio, and Chinese businessman and former economic adviser to President Rodrigo Duterte Michael Yang, were implicated in a House quad-committee inquiry into a ₱6-billion drug case involving Chinese-run Philippine offshore gaming operations. The stories were posted by identified accounts a total of 17 times in a span of 10 days.
These were then tweeted 18 times between Sept. 2 and Sept. 23, as lawmakers continued their investigation into the alleged misuse of public funds by Duterte’s Office of the Vice President and the Department of Education, which she had previously led.
Activity around Duterte’s content peaked again when the network of accounts simultaneously amplified the stories alongside its Nov. 11 “polvoron” video attack on Marcos Jr.
Foreign influence in Philippine political narratives
The coordinated nature of these attacks suggests an orchestrated effort to try to shape public perception ahead of the 2025 midterm elections. The network’s behavior indicates a strategic attempt to discredit Marcos Jr. while indirectly benefiting Duterte through increased online visibility.
As early as December 2023, the Initiative for Media Freedom or IMF detected the presence of a “polvoron” video that could be used in an influence operation against the Philippine president.
That same month, a MindaNews report identified what appeared to be a coordinated effort to misleadingly promote survey results regarding Vice President Sara Duterte’s trust rating, boosting her stance as a counterweight to Marcos Jr.
X restricts Chinese-named accounts
As of January 2025, 24 of the Chinese-named X accounts had been permanently suspended by the platform. Users visiting these suspended X accounts are told that these accounts were shut down for violating its community standards, which address issues such as user safety and authenticity of content.
In its rules section, X explicitly warns users against creating, operating, or mass-registering illegitimate accounts, including automated or scripted accounts that do not comply with its Developer Policy.
“Accounts on X must be authentic,” it said. “We prohibit coordinated inauthentic activity that artificially influences conversations or disrupts X.”
Users are also prohibited from using “manufactured identities to engage in disruptive or deceptive behavior,” including stock, stolen, or AI-generated profile photos—practices observed in the identified accounts.

A quick Google reverse image search of the profile photo used by one of the accounts flagged by PressOne.PH revealed that it was a stock photo previously used in advertising.
Before the suspension, X temporarily restricted these accounts for suspicious activity. These accounts, which were all created in September 2024, had only posted three pieces of content, all of them identical and posted within the same hour.
In late December, PressOne.PH identified two more Chinese-named accounts, both of which shared the debunked “polvoron” video of Marcos Jr. at the same time on Oct. 11. (with reports from Leigh San Diego, John Hurt Allauigan & Nathaniel Melican)
Editor’s note: The subhead “Duterte-related content boosted by the same network” was changed to “Duterte-related content amplified by the same network” for clarity.
Graphics by Nikko Balbedina
This report was made possible by an Internews project to build the capacity of news organizations in understanding disinformation and influence operations in the Philippines.

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