Final of two components
READ: Half 1 | Marawi siege and the prices of a weak media
MARAWI, Philippines – In the course of the 2017 Marawi siege, when panic and rumor traveled quicker than bullets, Fb turned town’s unofficial newsroom.
Citizen-led teams mushroomed in a single day, offering updates, sharing tales, and amplifying fears through social media. Their posts reached hundreds of households determined for data. However with out the guardrails of journalism, accuracy collapsed.
Instead of verified information, self-styled reporters went stay with shaky updates, lifted tales wholesale from mainstream media, and blurred the road between truth and opinion. The end result was not readability however confusion.
The directors of many of those social media pages — some with huge followings — stay nameless to this present day. Their secrecy is a breeding floor for disinformation, reinforcing biases and eroding public belief lengthy after the final photographs in Marawi have been fired.
Professionalism is missing. Take, for instance, one “report” that made the rounds on social media. It learn: “Automotive exhibition in Marawi ends in an accident, eight injured. Could all of them get nicely quickly.” The publish got here from a Fb web page calling itself Marawi Information On-line.
Like a lot of what the web page pushes out, it blurred the strains between what’s private {and professional}, with no sourcing, no verification, nothing to counsel the essential requirements of journalism had been met. A lot of the content material is solely lifted from established information retailers, with out acknowledgment.
And but, the web page has about 116,000 followers as of September 18. Since its creation on December 20, 2016, Marawi Information On-line has operated in precisely this style, presenting data with out attribution, and private asides as information.
One other web page, Marawi Metropolis Bayan Patrol, posted: “Kung could kawatan ng bigas, meron din magnanakaw ng gasol. Nangyari ito sa could tindahan sa space ng Jas Operate Corridor nung nakaraang araw.”
(If there’s rice theft, there’s fuel theft too. This occurred only in the near past close to a small retailer within the neighborhood of the Jas Operate Corridor.)
The publish a few petty theft lacked correct context and element. Like Marawi Information On-line, Marawi Metropolis Bayan Patrol usually makes use of content material from different sources with little or no attribution in any respect. It was created on August 3, 2017 and as of September 15, 2025, the web page has about 246,000 followers.
One other, MJournal, claims to be a nongovernment, non-partisan social media group. Its contents have a semblance {of professional} journalism, however its lack of accountability and anonymity raises issues particularly when it does election surveys.
5 months earlier than the Could 2025 elections, MJournal ran a Fb ballot displaying sturdy help for the mayoral bid of former mayor Fahad “Pre” Salic and his allies within the United Bangsamoro Justice Celebration, echoing his supposed survey lead earlier than the 2022 polls.
The outcomes of its FB surveys, nevertheless, diverged from actuality. Then-Marawi mayor Majul Gandamra beat Salic within the 2022 mayoral race, whereas in 2025 his son Shariff Zain Gandamra received the mayoralty towards the identical opponent, tightening their household’s grip on native politics.
All through the election season, MJournal posted surveys and updates about politics and communities round Lake Lanao. However its directors’ identities stay unclear, with experiences missing bylines or attribution.
“Many of those social media teams are sharing the identical content material, the identical opinions,” in response to Nurainie Rakim, a stringer of S’bang Ka Marawi.
She suspected that a few of the pages have been run by the identical particular person or group. When she requested about their sources, one replied that they have been “secret,” casting additional doubt on their credibility.
The issue is, “anybody can declare they’re journalists,” mentioned Mindanao State College (MSU) journalism professor Sorhaila Latip.
In Marawi, even the state-run radio station discovered itself robbed of its personal reporting. Radyo Pilipinas-Marawi station supervisor Shora Sabdullah complained that their radio experiences have been routinely lifted by Fb pages like Marawi Information On-line, stripped of attribution, and repackaged as their very own.
On July 16, Marawi Information On-line lifted a Radio Pilipinas Marawi report on a college help program at Amai Pakpak Elementary Faculty, reposting it with Division of Funds Administration pictures. It additionally copied a Manila Instances content material on ex-Surigao del Norte Consultant Robert Ace Barbers’ appointment as spokesman for Speaker Martin Romualdez, together with its publication supplies.
The web page has repeatedly recycled content material from media retailers like GMA Information and ABS-CBN Information, at instances mixing these reposts with private commentary.
What’s extra disturbing is their tendency to contribute to the unfold of disinformation.
“When Fb pages are spreading pretend information, I [write] to the web page administrator immediately. In the event that they don’t cease, I report them to the police,” Sabdullah mentioned.
However her complaints went nowhere. The directors hid behind anonymity, past accountability, which is a reminder that in Marawi, the loudest voices on-line usually converse with out a title, and with out consequence.
Rappler sought remark from the teams however solely MJournal replied. Marawi Metropolis Bayan Patrol and Marawi Information On-line didn’t reply. We’ll replace this story once they do.
In a Messenger chat on September 21, MJournal mentioned it was “guided by journalistic values” and posts solely data already made public by dependable sources. It didn’t establish its directors.
Citizen journalism
Efforts in citizen journalism to empower Marawi siege survivors started as early as 2020, serving to them inform their tales and use social media to report on their communities.
The group media platform S’bang Ka Marawi, supported by the nongovernment group Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment by Various Authorized Companies (IDEALS) and its companions, performed a key position.
Based in July 2017, S’bang Ka Marawi has grown with greater than 29,000 followers on Fb as of September 15. It advanced from a small radio station right into a group social media outlet with native “patrollers” or stringers assigned throughout Marawi Metropolis and Lanao del Sur.
By 2022, its radio operations ceased, and it transitioned totally right into a group information entity. As we speak, tales and updates are produced by group journalists who proceed to report on native points.
Rakim, one in every of its patrollers, lined the Could 2025 native elections.
“We write tales and use our voices by our cellular screens,” she mentioned.
A cultural bind
However reporting in Marawi and Lanao del Sur comes with dangers. This isn’t a spot for no-holds-barred questions. The flawed problem raised, or the flawed phrase spoken, can wound pleasure, ignite anger, and shut down the information story even earlier than it begins. For Meranaw journalists, meaning self-censorship is a security problem.
“By contextualizing the story and framing it with sensitivity to the group, there can be no threats to journalists [in Marawi and Lanao del Sur],” mentioned Latip, a former host at S’bang Ka Marawi.
She pressured that the media in Marawi want to acknowledge cultural values corresponding to maratabat, which, if disregarded, can lead to battle. Amongst Meranaws, respect is tied to hierarchy and credibility, she mentioned.
“Whereas native journalists are vital for Marawi, they need to even be respectful in doing their job,” Latip mentioned.
In Marawi, journalism runs headlong into maratabat, the code of pleasure and honor that governs social life and calls for deference to elders and the highly effective. For Latip and native reporters, that respect usually means firming down and even silence.
Offending a frontrunner dangers not solely shedding entry however scary hostility. The result’s self-censorship, with journalists framing tales so cautiously that tough questions could by no means be requested or revealed.
Which is why, Latip added, journalists in Marawi must all the time be aware of the tradition on prime of their credibility to talk and ask questions.
Sabdullah, a bae a labi, or a member of a sultanate in Lanao del Sur, recalled having to ask native leaders a few delicate problem, and “I needed to body my query rigorously in order to not offend their pleasure, as a result of I wanted to lift the difficulty.”
Nonetheless hopeful
“Within the lens of journalism, to tone down tales or body questions simply to be secure defeats the very objective of reporting,” mentioned MSU journalism professor Maria Ninotchka Herrera. She grew up in Marawi and now chairs the college’s communication and media research division.
Nonetheless, Herrera is blunt: security comes first and should stay the precedence.
Her personal journalism college students know the calculation nicely. The campus journalists admit to intentionally firming down tales, measuring each phrase towards the load of potential penalties.
“In our group, you’re simply traced due to your loved ones title,” mentioned Rakim, a pupil journalist who additionally serves as a S’bang Ka Marawi stringer.
In Marawi and Lanao del Sur, it’s comparatively simple to find out the place folks stay or come from, making Meranaw journalists simple targets. She defined that sure households are strongly related to particular locations, such because the Alontos of Dit-saan Ramain, the Gandamras of Marawi Metropolis, and the Macarambons of Balindong.
“Nonetheless, we must always not assume that journalism in Marawi Metropolis is not going to prosper,” Herrera mentioned.
She recalled the struggles of attempting to determine a journalism program previously. As we speak, MSU Marawi stands as the one college in Marawi and Lanao del Sur providing communication and media packages.
She added that individuals ought to stay “hopeful” that journalism will progress even in conflict-ridden areas like Marawi and Lanao del Sur.
“Perhaps not in my lifetime, however the efforts we put into pushing for progress are already a stepping stone,” Herrera mentioned.
Watchdogs?
In Marawi, mainstream media retailers are actually principally owned by political households (see desk under).
Radio Pilipinas-Marawi stays the only government-owned media outlet. The state-run PTV-Marawi, positioned on the Lanao del Sur provincial grounds, was launched by each the provincial and metropolis governments however has but to start full operation.
Native radio stations recurrently air Islamic packages and authorities broadcasts, however their content material usually favors station house owners lively in native politics.
For example, Radio Dansalan FM offers its proprietor, his household and their political allies air time that their rivals don’t get.
Marawi Mayor Shariff Zain Gandamra and his father, Vice Mayor and former mayor Majul Gandamra, host a daily section known as “Discuss to the Individuals,” which promotes metropolis authorities packages below their management.
Within the run-up to the Could 12 elections, this system additionally featured their allies, Lanao del Sur Governor Mamintal Adiong Jr. and Vice Governor Mohammad Khalid Adiong.
In 2022, Governor Adiong used the station to current his accomplishments and description his plans for the subsequent three years.
The Gandamra and Adiong households are assured common air time on Radio Dansalan, giving them an edge throughout campaigns. But their opponents don’t take pleasure in the identical entry.
Many native media retailers act as political mouthpieces, leaving disinformation and different points unchecked. Citizen teams attempting to report face talent and useful resource gaps, forcing residents to depend on restricted sources.
Marawi’s story goes past the 2017 siege: with out dependable data, communities are left susceptible, and the battle totally free and accountable media continues. – Rappler.com
Abdul Hafiz Tacoranga Malawani is a campus journalist from Marawi Metropolis, Lanao del Sur learning Data Expertise at Mindanao State College Marawi. He’s the editor in chief of Mindanao Varsitarian and an Aries Rufo Journalism Fellow of Rappler for 2025.
