[18] These were quickly refuted and denounced by martial law victims, including former Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr., former Social Welfare Secretary Judy Taguiwalo, former Commission on Human Rights chair Etta Rosales, and Palanca award-winning writer Boni Ilagan, among others.
"[14][15][17] Based on participant observation in Facebook community groups and Twitter accounts, as well as key informant interviews with 20 "disinformation architects," conducted from December 2016 to December 2017, the study described a "professionalized and hierarchized group of political operators who design disinformation campaigns, mobilize click armies, and execute innovative "digital black ops" and "signal scrambling" techniques for any interested political client.
"[5] One of the revelations from the Ong and Cabañes' 2018 study was the existence of "Ilibing Na" ("Bury now") campaign designed to create public support for a hero's burial for Ferdinand Marcos using "diversionary tactics to elude allegations of human rights violations and corruption during the term of Ferdinand Marcos"[5] and launching "digital black ops that targeted prominent critics" of the Marcoses, particularly vice president Leni Robredo.
[5] According to historian Francis Gealogo, President Bongbong Marcos relied on "mythmaking" and benefited from "historical distortion about his father’s regime that presented false narratives about the past".
[45] A 2020 study from the University of the Philippines Diliman found that "the Marcoses, their loyalists, and their allies" had produced and reproduced disinformation for years, intending to create an impression that the propaganda had actually come from a reputable community of scholars.
[16] A related study published that year by Vera Files found 119 claims about the Marcoses that had been debunked by various news organizations, and examined how they were distributed.
[46] Although a number of pro-Marcos propaganda "sourcebooks" had been published in 2000, the study found that about 72% of confirmed Marcos disinformation originated directly from social media, rather than print sources.
"[46] Researchers from the University of the Philippines Third World Studies Center noted that after Bongbong Marcos announced in October 2021 his candidacy for the presidency, claims praising his father's regime increased significantly.
[47] In addition to spreading disinformation, pro-Marcos posts also vilified post-Marcos administrations by falsely claiming that the Philippine economy was better under Marcos.
[56] Various universities in the Philippines have released various publications and have held numerous academic fora regarding the topic, referring to it as historical denialism, negationism, disinformation, or distortion.