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Two parties with opposing narratives are calling each other traitors as tensions rise in the disputed Ayungin Shoal and other parts of the West Philippine Sea (WPS).
They are calling each other ‘Makapili,’ referring to Filipinos who were serving the Japanese occupation forces during World War II in the 1940s.
During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, the Makapili were known as collaborators that provided military aid and intelligence to the Japanese Imperial Army.
Online, each of these opposing groups claim that the other group is being a traitor to the Philippines by siding, directly or indirectly, either with the United States or China.
Our ongoing investigation of influence operations led us to the use of the word Makapili when we stumbled upon a Facebook group called MaxDefense Philippines.
With a huge membership base, the Facebook group MaxDefense has been regularly posting its strong opinions about the handling of the WPS incidents. The group has a sizable following composed of self-confessed patriots, including former Philippine military personnel across all service branches. The group describes itself in its About tab as follows: “MaxDefense is a defense blog and commentaries discussing different defense and security issues within the Philippines and Asia. Updates for new commentaries will be posted here, while the main blog entries can be found at our main page maxdefense.blogspot.com.”
The Facebook page has at least 172K likes and 205K followers as of December 16.
A Crowdtangle search of the term “makapili” + “china” yielded at least 91 posts starting from December 2022 until now. CrowdTangle is a Meta tool that examines the analytics of Facebook posts. If it’s on Facebook and is published publicly, Crowdtangle has its data.
According to an initial Similarweb scan of its blog, MaxDefense has a sizable following online, with at least 32.3k visits in November alone.
Similarweb is one of many online tools that determine the following and reach of websites.
Throughout the Crowdtangle scan period, the term Makapili has appeared in at least 91 posts that gathered a total of at least 31,354 reactions as of December 16, 9:37 p.m.
However, the mention of the word is not exclusive to pro-Philippines posts at MaxDefense. MaxDefense only dominates the number of posts mentioning the keyword, but the page isn’t the only one using it.
A download of the Crowdtangle data revealed several usages of the term Makapili, with the other narrative group using the term to advance pro-China sentiments. Some accounts on various Facebook pages use the term to describe those who do not agree with the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s handling of the tension at the WPS.
China is claiming sovereign rights over nearly the entire South China Sea (SCS), including the WPS, which belongs to the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone. In its July 12, 2016 decision, the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague invalidated China’s historic claims and “nine-dash line” under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
This online investigation was mostly based on Crowdtangle searches, and thus does not yield enough evidence that the use of the term Makapili is coordinated among either parties.
In one post, for example, MaxDefense called Manila Times columnist Herman Tiu-Laurel a Makapili. Laurel is president of the Asian Century Philippines Strategic Studies Institute (ACPSSI) and columnist at the Asian Century Journal. He co-hosts a news segment at YouTube and Facebook Page ‘Global Talk News Radio’.
In a lengthy post dated December 15, Jun Abines assailed being described as a Makapili for his opinions about the situation in the SCS and the WPS. Abines is a self-confessed vlogger with a following of 29k on Facebook. His posts are supportive of “Team Unity” politicians (i.e. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and Vice President Sara Duterte).
In a post titled “SILENCING ANTI-WAR FILIPINOS,” Abines claimed that “Warmongers and Amboys are now trying to silence Filipinos like me who oppose the War Propaganda against China.”
Get Real Philippines columnist Ramon Ortol has a different use of the word Makapili. In an article posted on November 18, it is America that is likened to the Japanese colonizers. “What is incomprehensible now is the hate and vitriol being pushed against China when it has done nothing against the Philippine mainland and the Filipino people save for the “encounters” in the disputed areas in the South China Sea. China’s change in stance in the South China Sea is a logical reaction to Marcos allowing the US to convert the Philippines into an American military aircraft carrier with missiles pointed at China,” the article said.
In another post, Facebook page ‘The rhk111 Philippine Defense Page,’ which has at least 74k followers, showed a screenshot of a post by MaxDefense.
“Just two examples of traiors [sic]: Roy Kabanlit and Herman
Tiu Laurel. They are China’s moutbpieces [sic] and are just a
few of China’s propaganda mouthpieces in the
Philippines.
In this case, even propagating China’s fake
statements despite already debunked by evidence and common
sense.
#MaxDefense #MaxDefensePH #Makapili #Traydor
#TraydorDapatBinibitay #NoToChinesePropaganda
#NoToModernMakapilis #NoToChineseFakeNews.”
According to our initial research, Kabanlit appears to be the page admin of ‘The rhk111 Philippine Defense Page’.
In the said post, MaxDefense used the hashtag #makapili, along with #Traydor, #TraydorDapatBinibitay, #NoToChinesePropaganda, #NoToModernMakapilis, and #NoToChineseFakeNews.
“Traydor,” in Filipino, means traitor.
Monkov Monkov Simonov called MaxDefense a traitor at Facebook Group Philippines-China Friendship Club, which has at least 4.4k members
Why this matters
With the spread of disinformation in various global narratives, journalists and other stakeholders worldwide need to unravel them. The DISARM Foundation created the DISARM Framework as a tool to unravel disinformation and influence operation. DISARM stands for Disinformation Analysis and Response Measures. It is an open-source method to identify and effectively counter various types of disinformation. It allows “users to map, analyze, and respond to disinformation. It allows for the coordination of actions countering disinformation at scale in real-time. The DISARM framework also allows for coordination on research, analysis, and policy making.”
Since it is an open-source investigative tool, the foundation calls it a work in progress. We use its framework in this investigation.
The Makapili narrative emerged as a pattern worth examining.
A search on Google News yields only two results when one searches for the term “makapili” + “china.” These are one news story written by the Philippine Daily Inquirer and an editorial run by BusinessMirror. Recall that our Crowdtangle search has yielded nearly 100 hits of the term, and this has been in a span of at least one year. (Yas D. Ocampo / MindaNews)
(This alert was produced with support from an Internews initiative aiming to build the capacity of news organizations to understand and monitor disinformation and influence operations in the Philippines.)
