【by Ramon Guillermo and Noreen H. Sapalo, June 2025】
The discussion will focus on a preliminary social-media investigation and analysis of one of the more well-known “myths,” in the form of disinformation, which captured the public imagination during the 2022 Philippine presidential election. According to this story, the Marcos family allegedly owns hundreds of thousands of tons if not a million tons of gold which they will selflessly use to uplift the welfare of the Filipino people once they win the elections. There are, of course, different versions and complicated offshoots which may conflict with each other in terms of various details, but this complex of beliefs is generally referred to as the “Tallano Gold Myth” (TGM). The fact that YouTube videos on this myth, taken together, garnered millions of views during the campaign period of the elections made it necessary for fact checkers to also make numerous videos and posts debunking it. This, despite the fact that many observers were incredulous that people could actually believe in what for them was an example of fake news of the most preposterous kind.
A video which played an important role in propagating the TGM, came with the clickbait title, “Tunay Bang Bayani ng Pilipinas si Dr. Jose Rizal? PART#4” (TBBP) (Is Rizal the Real National Hero of the Philippines?). It has had more than 800,000 views with around 2,000 comments since it was uploaded on 13 November 2021. It is, as indicated in the title, part four of a series of five videos with a total number of around 2.5 million views taken together. TBBP was uploaded on the Pinoy Mystery Channel (PMC) which currently has 1.33 million subscribers. What are the main premises in outline of the TGM according to TBBP’s version? It is alleged, among others, that:
a) There was an ancient Philippine-Indonesian Royal Family headed by a Prince Julian McCloud Tallano;
b) That in 1934, the Tallano Royal Family loaned 640,000 tons of gold to the Vatican through a Fr. Jose Antonio Diaz who personally took charge of transporting the gold to the Vatican;
c) That Fr. Diaz was actually the one and the same as Dr. Jose Rizal, the Philippine national hero who did not die by firing squad on 30 December 1896;
d) That Fr. Diaz’ lawyer during these transactions happened to be former Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Sr.;
The TGM, as laid out in TBBP as well as its other variants, was greeted with a virtual barrage of fact checks especially as it gained increasing virality during the election period. For the purposes of this study and for better comparability, TBBP will be compared with the most-viewed TGM fact check on YouTube to date. Uploaded by the media outlet Rappler and entitled “Ang kayamanang ginto ng mga Marcos: ‘Yung Totoo?” (AKGM) (The Golden Hoard of the Marcoses: The Truth?), it has received more than 380,000 views and more than 2,800 comments since 4 December 2020. It will be noticed that the Rappler video, despite having fewer views, attracted many more comments and replies. The main points of refutation posed by AKGM against the TGM are as follows:
a) The Marcos Gold came from ill-gotten wealth and not from any hidden gold treasure;
b) All the gold which has been mined in the world to date adds up to only 200,000 metric tons. Claims of more than 600,000 metric tons, or even more than a million tons, are therefore impossible;
c) The Philippines does not have the largest gold reserves in the world. It only ranks 23rd in the list of nations with gold reserves;
d) There is no evidence that a Royal Family ruled over the whole of the Philippine archipelago in pre-colonial times;
e) There is no evidence that Marcos was ever a lawyer for any so-called Tallano family.
The comments and replies for both videos, making up a total of almost 5,000 in all, were then scraped and scanned for discourses contesting the contents and truth claims of each of the respective videos. That is to say, though the thousands of comments and replies contain a wealth of additional information, only the modes of contestation of the truth-claims of each video were collected and analyzed. More specifically, only comments and replies contesting the truth-claims of TBBP and AKGM in their respective comments sections were included in the analysis. Counter-arguments, replies, or retorts appearing in these comments sections were therefore not taken into account. To narrow things further down, only comments and replies with the word “paniniwala” (belief) and its various affixed word forms were considered. These word forms appear 192 times in the comments and replies of the TBBP and 228 times in the comments and replies of the AKGM.
In the TBBP video, “paniniwala” and its various related forms appear in a contestatory context in at least 40 comments and replies. This means that the usages in these contexts are directed towards negating the truth claims of the video. It can be observed that, in many of these contestatory contexts, words and expressions like “bobo” and “tanga,” pertaining to “stupidity” or “idiocy” are often used. The main idea expressed is usually a version of the hypothetically framed sentence, “only an idiot would believe this” or “My God, I can’t believe anyone would be dumb enough to believe this.” In most of the cases, this is expressed impersonally and without a direct or definite referent. It is true that these derogatory words were also used by TGM advocates to retaliate against the critics of the video, but since only the discourses contesting the truth-claims of each video are being considered, these usages are not covered by the present dataset.
On the other hand, the discourse of contestation disputing the claims of the AKGM, generally revolved around the collocation of the word “paniniwala” (and its various word forms) with “kami” (“we,” excluding those spoken to) and “kayo” (second person plural) (and their related possessive forms “amin” (our), “inyo” (your), “niyo” (your)). These add up to around 82 comments and replies. The distinction in Tagalog between first-person plural pronouns which either include (“tayo”) or exclude (“kami”) the person or collectivity being addressed does not exist in English. This is advantageous for the current analysis since the use of “kami” (exclusive “we”) in the contestatory comments clearly draws the line between two collectivities, namely, those who believe (“kami”) in the TGM and those who do not (“kayo”).
It can be remarked that this kind of “kami”-“kayo” polarization is virtually absent in the corresponding dataset of the anti-TGM contestatory discourse. This implies that the latter discourse tends to avoid the collectivization of idiocy as well as the collectivization of intelligence as its opposite, and apparently prefers to distinguish only between individuals of greater of lesser intellectual ability and discernment. It is telling that the anti-TGM critics do not literally constitute themselves discursively as a “we” (“kami”) who are “intelligent” (“matalino”). But the sheer density and intensity of the verbal assault unavoidably creates the basis for a generalization to the effect that those who subscribe to the TGM are “idiots” and those who do not are “intelligent.” In contrast to this, the TGM advocates more explicitly construct themselves discursively as a collective “kami” versus the non-believing “kayo.” Moreover, in contrast with the more indefinite addressee of derogatory epithets used by the anti-TGM critics, the pro-TGM contestatory discourse noticeably takes a more reactive form directed against those, like the producer of AKGM, who would seek to undermine their collective belief in this particular myth.
Unlike the anti-TGM contestatory discourse, however, their language of contestation hardly makes use of the discourse of mental inadequacy against their opponents. Instead, their reproach mainly touches on the matter of the alleged moral shortcomings of those who would question the TGM. They accuse their anti-TGM opponents of deliberately spreading “lies” (“kasinungalingan”) and “deception” (“panloloko”) in order to smear and “defame” (“paninira”/“basher”) the good name of the Marcoses for the purposes of pursuing their own selfish agenda. As a collective, the anti-TGM critics are usually branded as “dilawan” (“yellows,” associated with the Liberal Party of the Philippines). Because of this, the polarization assumes an explicitly political as well as class connotation.
The impersonal and generally individualistic framing (“only an idiot would believe this”) of the discourse of contestation around the TBBP is replaced, in the discourse of contestation around the AKGM, by a representation of communities of belief in conflict. The “kami” (pro-TGM advocates), feeling itself under attack, constitutes itself rhetorically into a community of belief which stands together in “hotly” defending itself against the “kayo” (the anti-TGM critics). Moreover, this community of belief is portrayed as a “virtuous” one which is opposed to “liars,” “deceivers,” and “defamers.” One remembers that the root of the Tagalog word “paniniwala” is “tiwala,” which means “trust” in someone or something. The concept itself may therefore be reflective of the notion that a community of faith believes in people or figures it can trust rather than in any simple factuality or impersonal recital of truths. The precipitated rise of an “us versus them” narrative in the contestatory discourse around the fact-check video means that the defenders of the TGM, bound up in a warm and mutually supportive online “virtuous community of belief,” can more effectively repel the individual and scattered approach of their “elite” and supposedly more “learned” and “intelligent” adversaries. The apparent effect of the arrogant and condescending contestatory discourse deployed against TBBP and its believers, combined with the anti-TGM video itself, may only have been to further consolidate the sense of collective solidarity and deepen the feeling of shared insult and grievance, of the TGM virtuous community of belief. Interactions among members of a such a community of belief may take place exclusively and anonymously within the digital sphere but may perhaps also include more personal kinds of contact in both digital and non-digital spheres. It is true that the phenomenon of polarization is nothing new in Philippine politics, but social media platforms have become important conduits and aggravators of political polarization.
Scenarios similar to the TGM case had already been sketched in an important study by Wataru Kusaka (2017) of the Philippine urban poor which had been undertaken in the immediate era before the rise of social media. According to him, two distinct “public spheres” exist in the Philippines. The first is the “civic sphere” made up of the “middle classes” and the “mass sphere” made up of the “impoverished classes.” These two spheres are separated by gaps in language, education, media, livelihood, and living environments. Members of the English-speaking civic sphere generally look down on the denizens of the mass sphere and consider them to be a pernicious, uneducated, and immoral influence on Philippine politics. On the other hand, members of the mass sphere often consider the members of the other group to be arrogant, condescending, and patronizing. When the mass sphere constitutes itself as a “we,” it is generally in populist terms as the oppressed and righteous “poor” who are oppressed and discriminated against by the “rich.” Kusaka calls the spaces where these two spheres partially intersect “contact zones,” which he views as offering possibilities for the amelioration of the antagonism between the two spheres.
Social media, despite the tendency towards engendering echo chambers due to algorithmic manipulation and control, can still be considered as offering almost infinite possibilities for generating contact zones between the two public spheres. Now, even in the digital sphere, one cannot fail to notice in the example of the TGM that the deeply ingrained discursive reflexes of the two spheres which Kusaka takes note of continue to reproduce themselves. The arrogance of the educated elite predictably provokes a reactive solidarity on the part of the insulted “poor.”
But what presents itself here in the concrete is not a simple antagonistic relationship between an undifferentiated middle class and an equally undifferentiated lower class. One should be careful to note that around half of the middle class were estimated to have voted and actively campaigned for Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Given this, one cannot avoid the question whether these numerous members of the middle class should be considered as belonging to the civic sphere or the mass sphere? Insofar as Kusaka identifies the civic sphere with promoting such liberal-reformist values as “‘policy-based debate,’ ‘accountability,’ ‘transparency,’ ‘good government’ and ‘rule of law,’” is he not actually referring to Filipino liberals as the most desirable members of the civic sphere? Isn’t his criticism of voter’s education initiatives and urban poor NGOs in his book actually directed towards what he perceived to be inadequacies in the practices of Filipino liberals in these areas rather than the purported practices of an amorphous civic sphere? Isn’t the civic sphere therefore more of an ideological than a class category? When Kusaka proposes that members of the civic sphere should go beyond the usual unreflective “civic inclusivism” and live up to an “ethic of restraint” combined with an “ethic of mutuality” in their relations with the “mass sphere,” isn’t he actually making proposals to change the culture of traditionally snobbish English-speaking Philippine liberalism in what he deems to be a positive direction?
It is most likely Kusaka’s deep, though not explicitly stated concern, with the revitalization of Philippine liberalism that constrains him to limit his observations of “contact zones” to those which have been set-up in recent history through the grassroots initiatives of liberal organizations and NGOs. However, historically speaking, innumerable experiments in “contact zone” formation had already been initiated in the past by the different nationalist and revolutionary movements in the Philippines from the Katipunan to the early labor and peasant movements onwards.
The question thus arises of how these rich experiences of contact zones, with all of their successes and failures, large and small, be drawn upon and carried forward in order to improve both online and offline organizing and educational work? But more particularly, in the present context relating to online political campaigns and organizing work, some questions immediately arise. How do social media platforms provide possibilities and limitations to political engagement and pedagogical work through their technological designs and algorithms? What are the shortcomings of fact checks and Internet campaigns against historical distortion? How can the constitution and consolidation of virtuous online communities of belief revolving around fake news and disinformation be preempted? Is it possible to engage with and transform virtuous online communities of belief from within their own discursive spaces? How can disparate online communities of belief develop lines of communication? How can alternative online communities of belief on the basis of liberative and progressive agendas and goals flourish and grow? And more importantly, how can these contribute to mass movements desiring to effect genuine social change?
AUTHORS
Ramon Guillermo is Director of the Center for International Studies, University of the Philippines-Diliman, Philippines. Email: [email protected]
Noreen H. Sapalo is Assistant Professor of Anthropology, and affiliate faculty with the CSSP Folklore Program, University of the Philippines-Diliman, Philippines. Email: [email protected]
REFERENCE
Kusaka, Wataru. 2017. Moral Politics in the Philippines: Inequality, Democracy and the Urban Poor. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.