Identical posts thank Duterte for free tuition law after Bam's surprise Senate win

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May 14, 2025 | 4:25pm

This report forms part of Philstar.com's coverage of influence operations, which involve the spread of false information and propaganda that can mislead, cause confusion and prevent informed understanding and discourse. Read our explainer on influence operations. 

MANILA, Philippines — Dozens of Facebook accounts published identical posts mainly crediting former President Rodrigo Duterte for the passage of the free tuition law, hours after initial results showed Bam Aquino among the frontrunners in the senatorial elections.

Philstar.com's monitoring from May 12 to May 14 shows that at least 45 Facebook pages and users had published the same image and post word-for-word, three of which are accounts named after Veronica "Kitty" Duterte, the former president's youngest daughter. 

Most of these pages have no apparent connection, but had shared the same post and image within a similar time frame. 

For instance, nearly a third or 13 out of 45 posts monitored by Philstar.com were published within the 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. window on May 13, a day after election day.

This surge of posts attributing free higher education to Duterte appears "suspiciously coordinated," said Gian Libot, a disinformation researcher who first flagged the influence operation Tuesday evening, May 13. 

Based on his tracking of posts — which also appeared in Philstar.com's monitoring — Libot observed several accounts "sharing the same content, the same image, within a block of time" even as they do not follow each other.

Script claims Aquino is a credit-grabber

All 45 posts monitored by Philstar.com accuse Aquino of taking sole credit for the passage of Republic Act 10931, or the Universal Access to Quality Tertiary Education Act in 2017. 

The same partisan message argues Duterte deserves to be thanked for "actively signing" the legislation that Aquino authored and principally sponsored as a senator.  

It also called on supporters of "Unipink" to "learn to thank PRRD and not just Bam Aquino." 

An excerpt of the post reads:

UNIPINK MAGBASA!!! LALONG LALO NA SA MGA KABATAAN NA BASH NG BASH KAY PRRD Rody Duterte, VP Inday Sara Duterte AT SA PAMILYA DUTERTE! WAG MASYADONG MAKAPAL ANG MUKHÁ!!! ISAKSAK NIYO SA KUKOTE NINYO NA HINDI ITO MAISASABATAS KUNG HINDI ITO SINUPORTAHAN NI TATAY DIGONG. MATUTO KAYONG MAGRESEARCH AT WAG KUDA NG KUDA!!! WAG NIYONG PAIRALIN ANG UTAK SABAW NINYO LALO NA KAYONG MGA KABATAAN NGAYON! MATUTO KAYONG MAGPASALAMAT KAY PRRD HINDI LANG SI BAM AQUINO!!!!!!

The term "Unipink" has been used by some pro-Duterte accounts to allude to the supporters of Marcos and former Vice President Leni Robredo-aligned candidates.

The identical posts used similar hashtags: #TheBestPresident, #PRRD and #DuterteLegacy.

Libot also noted that the image featuring Aquino and Duterte appears to be AI-generated due to the artificial sheen of the pictures. Libot said this indicates that "at the very least, someone made the effort to create a visual."

Most viral post. The post that received the largest reach was published by the Facebook page "Ms. Bisdak Blog," which received some 43,000 shares as of posting.

Several of those sharing the post by "Ms. Bisdak Blog" featured captions disagreeing with the claim by highlighting Aquino's work on the bill that eventually became the free tuition law.

The page has around 31,000 followers and regularly posts content in favor of the Duterte family.

The "script" was also reposted by a Facebook page called "Alliance In Motion Global" — the name of a known health and wellness company — but the page is not its official account. It has so far garnered 35 shares.

Three of the 45 accounts reposted the image anonymously on non-political Facebook groups "LALAMOVE PHILIPPINES DRIVER, RIDER AND CS GROUP," "TAGA PLARIDEL BULACAN" and "NUBIA NEO COMMUNITY PHILIPPINES."

There also seems to be another attempt to spread a different "script" that similarly aims to downplay Aquino's role in the passage of the free tuition law.

On Wednesday, Facebook page "Joie De Vivre Every Other Day" published an image of Aquino with a text overlay reading: "NO, IT'S NOT YOU." 

The post's caption claims the law "could’ve been written by anyone really" and that without Duterte, the bill "would’ve collected cob webs until today." 

This post has received over 4,500 shares. At least two other Facebook accounts have so far reposted the same image and caption as of Wednesday afternoon.

Aquino is poised to place a Senate seat as partial and unofficial results show him landing in second place, below incumbent Sen. Bong Go, who is the frontrunner.

What are the facts?

RA 10931 provides free tuition and exemption from other school fees in state universities and colleges, while also offering subsidies for private higher education institutions.

Aquino calls himself the "principal sponsor and co-author" of one of the Senate bills that became RA 10931, specifically Senate Bill 177. 

As then-chairperson of the Senate education committee, Aquino led the measure's passage through the upper chamber, shepherding it through the legislative process before its eventual approval.

But Aquino is not the principal author and has not called himself such.

Then-Sen. Ralph Recto filed a similar measure first (Senate Bill 61). This makes Recto the principal author. 

Duterte's role. The former president signed the bill into law on Aug. 3, 2017. 

A bill can also become law if not signed by the president within 30 days from receipt.

— with reports by Geraldine Santos and Rosette Adel