Stakeholders lay groundwork to fight disinformation ahead of BARMM elections
DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / August 11) — Just over a month before the first Bangsamoro Parliamentary Elections, MindaNews brought together journalists, educators, community representatives, and technical experts on August 1 to develop a framework for countering disinformation and producing immediate BARMM-responsive communication concepts.
The consultation, titled “Beyond Fact-Checking,” was held at the MindaNews headquarters in Davao City as the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) prepares for its first parliamentary elections on Sept. 14.
Participants worked on the proposed MindaNews Framework for Information Resilience. BASIS—Belief, Actor, System, Impact, and Strategy—expands the response to disinformation beyond determining whether a claim is true or false.
The framework examines why people believe or defend information, who creates or amplifies it, how it spreads, what harm it may cause, and which response would be accurate, ethical, and effective.
Jill V. Palarca, training officer of the Mindanao Institute of Journalism, said the framework begins with a fundamental question that conventional fact-checking does not always address.
“At the heart of the framework is the first question: Why do we believe what we believe,” Palarca asked.
“That is why the curriculum consultation included expertise from psychology and fictional narrative, alongside journalism, education, community experience, and technology. To counter disinformation effectively, we need to understand not only whether information is false, but why it feels credible, why people accept or defend it, and what kind of response can genuinely reach them,” she added.
BARMM was selected as the framework’s first testing ground because strengthening information resilience in the region is a major focus of Media Impact Philippines, a three-year media development project implemented by the Mindanao Institute of Journalism (MIJ) with funding from the International Media Support and co-funded by the European Union and DANIDA.
Drawing from earlier engagements with BARMM communities and existing research, MIJ identified rapid social media adoption, limited information literacy, policy gaps, weak institutions, and sporadic violence as factors that make the region particularly vulnerable to election-related disinformation.
During the consultation, Tessa Alison of the Madaris Volunteer Program, said that even educators can have difficulty distinguishing among misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.
“Even teachers have difficulty in addressing misinformation, disinformation, malinformation, and information, kasi sila mismo, hindi nila alam kung ano yun,” she said.
Alison shared that “the impact of disinformation goes far beyond incorrect information.”
“For students, it may result confusion, manipulation, or even cyber bullying. And then, for families, it can create fear, misunderstanding, and also tension,” she added.
Crisanto Cayon of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy–Bangsamoro also raised concerns about the ability of political parties to explain themselves and the new parliamentary system to the public.
“At the crux of it is they don’t even know how to communicate themselves as political parties in a parliamentary system of government. How much more ang tao? So that’s really the worry,” he said.
“So even itong information, disinformation, fact-checking, hindi yan naka-ingrained sa DNA ng mga political parties,” he added.
Participants viewed Michael Lacanilao’s The Brief History of the Escherian Stairwell and discussed how fictional narrative, visual authority, institutional credibility, and plausible presentation can influence belief.
Psychologist Randolph Reserva examined the roles of identity, emotion, belonging, dignity, and trust, while madaris representatives shared community perspectives on language, culture, trusted messengers, and online and offline information networks.
The afternoon sessions connected these insights with MindaNews’ existing fact-checking curriculum, presented by fact-checking program manager Yas D. Ocampo. Gian Libot introduced open-source intelligence, actor and network mapping, artificial intelligence, and influence-operation analysis.
Participants then reviewed the curriculum and developed additional audience-specific information, education, and communication concepts that could support communities before and during the September elections.
BARMM is the program’s immediate pilot, not its geographic limit. From October to December, lessons from the elections and the initial application of the framework will be reviewed to refine BASIS and the MindaNews counter-disinformation curriculum.
The revised framework and curriculum will support longer-term preparations for the 2028 national and local elections, with Davao and the wider Mindanao region treated as major arenas of political propaganda, disinformation, and influence operations. (Razl EJ Teman/MindaNews)
No comments:
Post a Comment