- Cambridge Analytica claimed to have helped a Philippine presidentiable win the elections.
- Cambridge Analytica helped Duterte campaign
Following the recent scandal involving a large amount of Facebook data being compromised to Cambridge Analytica, it was reported that Philipines was not spared as some 1.1 million accounts were said to be affected by the breach.
News reports said that the Cambridge Analytica scandal may have also affected or influenced the outcome of the Philippine elections.
Cambridge Analytica is a British political consulting firm which combines data mining, data brokerage, and data analysis with strategic communication for the electoral process. It was started in 2013 as an offshoot of the SCL Group.
Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) on the other hand is Cambridge Analytica’s parent company; a multi-disciplined behavioral research and intervention agency established to address the need for a scientific and verifiable approach to often life-critical communication campaigns – such as conflict transformation, humanitarian disasters, and programmes of political and social reform.
In an article by Rigoberto Tiglao for the Manila Times, Tiglao claimed that it was Noynoy Aquino who benefited from Cambridge Analytica and not Duterte which was claimed by other news reports.
In his article, Tiglao said that it was Aquino’s campaign team who worked with SCL Elections through Campaigns and Grey.
Tiglao based his claim from the SCL Elections website where it said that it had run an election campaign in the Philippines and it successfully won the election for their candidate.
While there was no named mention, the post was traced back to September 2010, the election year when former President Noynoy Aquino won.
In an interview with Rappler, one of Aquino’s campaign manager Butch Abad vehemently denied working with anyone connected with SCL. According to Abad who manages Aquino’s campaign all throughout, he didn’t know of any connection with SCL with regards to the Aquino campaign in 2010.
“I never heard of that group working with the campaign and never met anyone representing that group,” he said.
“To claim that they managed ‘all aspects of the campaign’ is a big lie. And the simple reason is that I never encountered that agency or anybody who claimed to represent them.” Abad added.
Meanwhile, reports about Cambridge Analytica influencing the 2016 election came when SCL published on its 2013 brochure a claiming that it has rebranded an incumbent candidate into “a strong, no-nonsense man of action, who would appeal to the true values of the voters”.
While it doesn’t name the candidate again the description fits the current president Rodrigo Duterte.
Although 2013 is not a presidential election and Duterte wasn’t a candidate yet at that time, it was in 2013 when Cambridge Analytica started to harvest Facebook data. And 2 years later, CA’s CEO Alexander Nix came to the country to do some research according to him.
It was also then when Nix was seen on a picture having a meeting together with Duterte’s campaign managers Pompee and Peter Lavina.
Rappler also traced a connection with SCL to Duterte through SCL’s affiliate office in the Philippines Istratehiya Inc which is owned by a Davao Lawyer and friend of Duterte Rey Faizal Ponce Millan.
