Marcos admin has no troll farms, armies — PCO

Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Cheloy Garafil insisted Monday the Marcos administration has no troll farms or armies.

"For the record, Mr. Chair, wala po kaming troll (we have no trolls). No troll farm, no troll army," Garafil said during the Senate committee on finance hearing of the PCO's proposed P1.921 billion budget for fiscal year 2024.

"Mr. Chair, mayroon lang po kaming 363 employees sa PCO (We only have 363 employees in the PCO)," she added.

The issue on troll farms was asked by Senator JV Ejercito noting that during the previous administration, a total of 1,479 Palace personnel have been suspected of being trolls who were allegedly proliferating fake news and misinformation on social media sites.

Garafil maintained that it has been the goal of the PCO to combat fake news.

"Ang number one priority pa rin namin siyempre communication kay Presidente pero, of course, underlying that is 'yung nasabi ninyo nga kanina, 'yung fight against fake news kaya nga po ngayong taon, nag-launch kami ng media information literacy campaign para po matugunan 'yung problema sa fake news," she said.

(Our number one priority is of course the communication with the President, but of course, underlying that is our fight against fake news. That's why we launched the media information literacy campaign to address the problem on fake news.)

Historical revisionism

In an ambush interview, Garafil also said the PCO would not engage into any form of historical revisionism.

"Hindi kami mag-eengage ng anything revisionism na sinasabi nila, on the contrary, gusto nga namin... kaya ito ay hindi fact-checking tool, gusto namin ma-empower lahat ng tao especially youth para makita nila mismo, on their own ano talaga 'yung totoo o hindi," Garafil said.

(We will not engage in revisionism. We want to empower everyone, especially the youth, so that they will gauge and see what is factual or not.)

"Wala kaming ire-revise dito," she added.

(We will not revise anything here.)

She also mentioned the PCO's partnership with social media sites, including TikTok, to combat fake news. Garafil said the PCO believes on having a positive collaboration with TikTok instead of banning the platform.

"On the opposite, hindi lang namin nabanggit pero mayroon kaming nabuong partnership with them. Mas collaborative 'yung approach namin with respect doon sa mga top media platforms sa social media since noong naglaunch kami ng MILC, kasama namin ang Facebook, kasama natin ang X, kasama natin ang TikTok and Google," she said.

(We have a partnership with them. Our approach is more collaborative with respect to the top media platforms that we partnered with in our MILC, including Facebook, X, TikTok and Google.)

"Naniniwala kami mas magiging positive collaboration ang gagawin instead na magbaban ka nang magbaban ng platforms," Garafil added.

(We believe that this will be a positive collaboration instead of just banning these platforms.)

Earlier, the National Security Council said it is looking into the possibility of banning TikTok among the government’s uniformed personnel to avoid a possible data leak.

The PCO had signed a memorandum of understanding with other government agencies to implement the administration's Media and Information Literacy (MIL) Campaign Project.

The PCO said the MIL is “the administration's response to the disinformation and misinformation plaguing the country’s digital landscape, focusing on capacitating the youth to become more discerning consumers of media.”—AOL/RSJ, GMA Integrated News