Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the presidential front-runner and his candidate of choice, had become wealthy, according to a YouTuber in the Philippines.
He said that the story was simple: Ferdinand Marcos did not steal money from the government. He was given tons of gold by a royal family in the Philippines.
The gold story has been discredited by multiple fact checkers, but Mr. Agravante is still repeating it. The way he sees it, he is part of the alternative media that spreads stupid and wrong information about our history before the election.
Richard Heydarian, a political analyst at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, said that the Philippines is paying the price for not having regulatory oversight and not making sure that the general population has a necessary cognitive resilience against these kinds of brazen and blatant lies.
There is a lot of misinformation being peddled. The violent Marcos era is being seen as a time of strong economic growth and infrastructure projects. Leni Robredo, the country's vice president and Mr. Marcos' chief rival, is being painted as a communist.
In one video, Jovalyn Alcantara, known to her 24,000 TikTok followers as Mami Peng, makes a false claim that the Philippines' debt doubled after the fall of the Marcos dictatorship.
When a New York Times reporter pointed out that she was wrong, she said, "So what if it's incorrect?" Her video has been viewed thousands of times.
The president won the election in part because his allies flooded Facebook with false news about his opponents. The supporters of Mr. Marcos have decided to use livestream video on social media.
The candidate's election narrative is echoed by the YouTubers. They spread false information about his wealth and accusations that Ms. Robredo cheated to defeat him in the 2016 vice-presidential race.
Analysts think that the army of streamers is so large and devoted that Mr. Marcos would most likely use it to spread his message as president.
Benjamin Abalos Jr., Mr. Marcos's campaign manager, told The Times that all candidates engage in disinformation.
The streamers say that they are not paid by the Marcos camp, and that they are allowed to attend his rallies. According to a review by The Times, a dozen of their channels have a total of 1.6 million subscribers on YouTube and over 500,000 followers on Facebook.
The company removed more than 400,000 videos for violating hate speech, harassment and election misinformation policies. A spokeswoman for Meta, Facebook's parent company, said an account flagged by The Times had shared false content and had been barred from posting.
The prevalence of apps such as TikTok has made it harder to weed out bad actors.
If this election is won using misinformation, it will become a tried and tested formula that will be used in every election, warned Ms. Robredo in a speech to the Catholic Church.
Yvonne Chua said in an email that the fact checks from her partners pointed to Mr. Marcos's supporters.
Professor Chua, who is an associate professor of journalism at the University of the Philippines, said that incorrect information coming from certain candidates is rare.
Mr. Agravante was a call-center agent before he became a full-time YouTuber. A long time supporter of Mr. Marcos, he knows the candidate has denied the gold claim. Mr. Agravante is defiant.
He said that he wouldn't change his mind just because he denied it.
The amateur videos produced by Mr. Agravante sound authentic, according to a researcher at Harvard.
The pro-Marcos videos have pictures of Mr. Marcos and his daughter, Sara. The 1986 People Power Revolution, which toppled the Marcos regime, was the subject of an interview with a Marcos follower.
The legal cases against the Marcoses were disputed by the man who made the video.
Mr. Tabigue said that he quit his job as a salesman to become a full-time YouTuber and that he earned close to $10,000 a month.
No one in the Marcos family has been imprisoned, but Mr. Marcos's mother was sentenced to up to 11 years in prison for creating private foundations to hide her unexplained wealth. Her appeal is pending, and she posted bail in the year 2018?
The Senate held a series of hearings on the crisis in the Philippines. Lawmakers were struggling to get the issue under control because no concrete steps were agreed upon.
In February, Senator Francis Pangilinan, who is running for vice president in support of Ms. Robredo, called for the Senate to review criminal laws to curb misinformation. His efforts were not successful.
On a recent motorcade with Mr. Marcos, Ms. Alcantara held a phone in her left hand as she helped another supporter set up his livestream. She flashed the peace sign with her other hand.
She yelled, "Marcos always!"
She said her account had been temporarily banned several times after being reported by Ms. Robredo's supporters. They also post false claims.
She cried as she remembered the good things the Marcoses had done for her community.
Sui-Lee Wee and a few other people contributed to the reporting.
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