[DECODED] On Facebook, Duterte’s Senate bets go all in as Bam Aquino steps up

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It’s become gospel truth that social media is a key battleground for politicians and their campaigns.

The Philippines, once dubbed the social media capital of the world, first witnessed the power of social media campaigning when Rodrigo Duterte was elected president. A dedicated social media team helped Duterte win in 2016, and today his family continues to reap the benefits of their loyal supporter base online. The victory of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022 was also the result of a well-oiled social media machinery that was years in the making.

In the lead-up to the 2025 midterm elections, a number of senatorial candidates have stepped up their game on Facebook. Duterte’s allies in the race showed off their links to the family, and enjoyed high engagement rates and support from various communities. Marcos’ Senate picks from his Alyansa slate have varied levels of social media activity, but they still ranked high on pre-election surveys.

Former senator Bam Aquino is also making space on Facebook for the opposition, whose influence has dwindled over the past years. Aquino has inched up on Pulse Asia’s latest survey, where he just made it within the winners’ circle at the 11-18 rank.

Could reaching wider audiences online be the key to a successful campaign? Are senatorial candidates making the most of social media?

The Nerve looked into how senatorial candidates were campaigning on Facebook, the most popular social media platform in the Philippines, between February 11 — the first day of the campaign period — and April 30, 2025. We looked into candidates’ Facebook ads, their performance on the platform, and the other communities invested in the senatorial race.

Villar’s big spends, Aquino’s hardworking ads

Facebook allows political advertising on their platform, provided that advertisements meet certain requirements. This allows candidates to launch paid campaigns that can complement — or substitute — traditional advertising.

The Nerve looked into the senatorial candidates’ Facebook advertisements related to social issues, elections, or politics, which were delivered to users between February 11 and April 30, 2025.

Of the 64 active senatorial candidates, 27 of them ran Facebook ads on their official pages during this time.

Camille Villar, daughter of the country’s richest man Manny Villar, emerged as the biggest spender for Facebook ads. She spent at least P16.9 million on a total of 107 Facebook ads delivered during the given time period. She also had the highest number of advertisements (5) with budgets that exceeded P1 million.

Previous reports from the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism found that Villar already topped Facebook ad spending as well as traditional ad spending as early as 2024.

Among Villar’s most expensive ads on the platform was a video featuring Vice President Sara Duterte. The video was used for three different versions of the ad, delivered to users in various regions of the country. This cost over P1 million all in all, and hit over 1 million impressions.

In all versions of the ad, the Vice President’s core message was the same: that it may be hard to find true friends today, but that the Villars are loyal and have never betrayed her family. Villar will be Filipinos’ friend in the Senate, Duterte said.

Duterte has since fallen out with President Marcos Jr., whose Alyansa slate seems to have excluded Villar in recent sorties.

But in terms of how hardworking their Facebook advertisements are, Bam Aquino takes the lead. Aquino launched a total of 24 Facebook ads in the given time period, which amassed at least 20,710,000 impressions all in all. That accounted for at least 862,917 impressions per Facebook ad.

Meta defines impressions as the number of times a given advertisement was shown on a screen, which may account for multiple views by the same users.

Among Aquino’s most-viewed and most expensive ads was a video that stayed true to the heart of his campaign: free college education for public students, and jobs for fresh graduates. The same video was used in at least six other ads.

After Aquino, candidates who received high minimum impressions on average are Duterte allies Rodante Marcoleta, Bato dela Rosa, and Bong Go. Like Villar, all three candidates flaunted their ties to the Duterte family in some ads. Dela Rosa and Go even boosted content on Duterte’s ICC arrest in the same time period.

But ad spending doesn’t tell the full story.

For example, Marcos Jr. snubbed Facebook advertising in the runup to the 2022 elections, and had to play catch-up for traditional advertising. Despite this, he maintained a steady lead in pre-election surveys and ultimately won the majority of votes on election day.

The Nerve also only looked into Facebook ads launched by the official pages of the candidates. Our analysis does not include other Facebook pages that could be running the ads for them.

How online activity, big names come into play

Outside paid advertisements, candidates can also campaign on Facebook through standard posts on their respective pages. The Nerve looked into the Facebook performance of senatorial candidates and their influence on the platform. This included candidates with over 15,000 followers on their official pages, or over 25,000 followers on their official profiles.

Some survey front-runners are also active on Facebook. Senator Bong Go, who topped Pulse Asia’s senatorial preference survey in April, is among the most active and engaging candidates on Facebook. He also received significant exposure through his Facebook ads — on average, Go’s Facebook ads received at least 760,394 impressions on the platform.

The same can be said for Senator Bong Revilla, who landed within the 5-8 rank on the same survey. Apart from maintaining an active social media presence on his official page, he also launched a total of 154 Facebook ads during this time.

However, high social media activity does not necessarily equate to high survey rankings.

For instance, Dr. Richard Mata, a Duterte ally and social media personality, was the most active senatorial candidate on Facebook, churning out 2,700 posts between February 11 and April 30. However, he landed only within the 28-30 rank on Pulse Asia’s April survey.

Meanwhile, Manny Pacquiao, who just landed within the Magic 12 in Pulse Asia’s survey, shared 31 posts only during the same period. But he is also the most-followed senatorial candidate on Facebook, with about 19 million followers on the platform. He’s also, of course, already made a name for himself as a boxing legend.

Like Pacquiao, there are a number of candidates currently in Pulse Asia’s Magic 12 who, despite having a below-average number of Facebook posts, enjoy the advantage of name recall. This included media personalities Erwin and Ben Tulfo, actor-senator Lito Lapid, and various candidates from political families (Abby Binay, Pia Cayetano, and Villar).

Duterte and opposition bets get high interactions, Marcos bets vary

In some cases, candidates in the same slate or affiliated with the same politicians share similar approaches to Facebook campaigning.

Duterte-allied candidates, even those who haven’t breached the Magic 12, generally get high interaction rates on Facebook. Survey front-runner Bong Go is the only Duterte-backed bet with an above-average number of posts and above-average interactions, but other candidates still garnered significant engagement on the platform.

Opposition bets Aquino and Kiko Pangilinan are also among the top-performing candidates on Facebook, with above-average posts and interactions. While Aquino just made it within Pulse Asia’s Magic 12, Pangilinan is further down the list, ranking 17-19.

However, Marcos’ Alyansa bets had varied approaches to social media. While Revilla maintained a very active presence on Facebook with 595 posts, Binay was much more low-key and shared a mere six posts in the same time frame. Despite this, both Revilla and Binay landed in Pulse Asia’s Magic 12, which was dominated by Alyansa candidates in its latest survey.

For candidates affiliated with other parties, it can be difficult to campaign on Facebook when they’re up against much bigger names. For instance, progressive bets Teddy Casiño, Arlene Brosas, Luke Espiritu, and Leody de Guzman all received below-average interactions and have much smaller audiences on the platform.

Outside official campaigns, networks give candidates a boost

But there’s a lot of political chatter online that happens outside of the candidates’ official channels, too.

The Nerve also scanned public Facebook posts, shared between February 11 and April 30, that included mentions of the 64 senatorial candidates. Then, we used our Navigate solution which maps how messages are being distributed among communities.

There are two separate pro-Duterte community clusters — one for Facebook pages, another for Facebook groups — which promoted different Duterte-allied senatorial candidates. There was also a smaller community cluster of pro-Marcos groups and pages, which likewise promoted Marcos’ Alyansa bets.

However, both the pro-Duterte and pro-Marcos communities had mixed feelings about Senator Imee Marcos, who straddled between both teams. Earlier this year, she left the administration’s Alyansa slate and later released an advertisement that featured Vice President Duterte. While some pro-Duterte or pro-Marcos users supported Imee, others were critical or even wary of her.

At the center of the network map is a community composed of media and political pages. This included the official pages and supporter accounts of various politicians from different parties, but the most-connected pages in this cluster support Aquino. This community is also closely linked to another community of opposition groups and pages.

Not all pages and groups in these networks explicitly promoted certain politicians or parties in their names. A large community of Eat Bulaga fan pages and groups not only featured former senator Tito Sotto, but also promoted Duterte-backed candidates and attacked Duterte critics like Makabayan bet France Castro. A smaller cluster of Iglesia ni Cristo groups promoted Marcoleta, and a community of buy-and-sell groups seemed to coordinate to promote former defense secretary Norberto Gonzales.

Will their Facebook campaigning efforts pay off on Monday, May 12? — with reports from Pauline Macaraeg, Keith Yadao, Patrisha Estrada, and Dylan Salcedo/Rappler.com

Decoded is a Rappler series that explores the challenges and opportunities that come with living in transformative times. It is produced by The Nerve, a data forensics company that enables changemakers to navigate real-world trends and issues through narrative and network investigations. Taking the best of human and machine, we enable partners to unlock powerful insights that shape informed decisions. Composed of a team of data scientists, strategists, award-winning storytellers, and designers, the company is on a mission to deliver data with real-world impact.

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