MANILA — Vice President Leni Robredo says volunteers paid for her social media campaign ads, in a bid to tackle fake news and misinformation.

“From the official campaign, none that I know of. Ang alam ko talaga, karamihan talaga dito mga volunteer groups,” Robredo told ANC’s Rundown on Thursday, when asked if his campaign team had spent any money for social media ads.

Facebook ads for Robredo, the opposition bet for the president, amounted to 14.1 million pesos from August 4, 2020, when the transparency tool was activated, until December 31, 2021, according to a social media platform ad library review. She had the highest Facebook spend of any 2022 presidential candidate.

Robredo said it was understandable that subscribers were running these ads for her.

“I understand why our volunteers feel the need to do this as it has been clear over the past 5 years and early in the campaign to seize the machinery of social media by kalaban,” she said.

Robredo said many pundits have also pointed out that its competitors have armies of trolls, who spread fake news and hurl insults.

“Kaya marami talaga sa volunteer groups namin, yung perception nila, kailangan talaga nilang tumulong. Parang yung sense of urgency din sa kanila nandun. Kaya, everyone is doing their part,” she added.

(A lot of our volunteer groups really want to help. They are aware of fake news, they know misinformation needs to stop, we need to fight it. They have a sense of urgency.)

His spokesperson. Attorney Barry Gutierrez said the ads were paid for by volunteers who coordinated with the campaign team to either bolster the vice president’s official posts or produce original material to promote her candidacy.

Robredo ranked second to fellow presidential hopeful Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. in a poll of voter preferences released Dec. 22.

In that survey, more than half or 53% said they would vote for the former dictator’s only son and namesake for president, while 20% said they would vote for Robredo.

Unlike Robredo, however, Marcos hasn’t had any Facebook advertising spend.

But that’s not surprising because Marcos prefers meme wars to ads, said disinformation researcher Jonathan Ong.

“Political ads are traditionally good at conveying the overall proposition and branding of candidates, but they can end up looking generic and inauthentic. BBM is more invested in “meme wars” and campaigning through political fan groups, community pages and micro-influencers,” Ong said.

Facebook’s Ads Library is a public database of ads served on the company-owned social media platform now called Meta. It provides details such as ad content, how much was spent on boosting ads, and who was targeted to see the ads.

However, the ad library does not detail how much the contestants spent to produce the ads and the payments to the social media experts who managed their accounts. It also does not cover payments to “influencers” solicited to support contestants on Facebook.