DOF defends hiring of controversial PR man

Nicanor Gabunada Jr.

MANILA, Philippines — Nicanor “Nic” Gabunada Jr., a public relations practitioner behind the alleged fake news social media accounts taken down by Facebook in 2019, will help the Department of Finance (DOF) push for the passage of the remaining tax reform and economic bills in Congress, a DOF official said on Tuesday.

Defending the hiring of the social media manager of President Duterte’s 2016 campaign, Finance Undersecretary Gil Beltran said Gabunada’s work as consultant for the agency would not involve setting up accounts on social media platforms such as Facebook.

Gabunada was earlier identified as the operator of some 200 pro-Duterte Facebook pages and groups and Instagram accounts that the social media giant removed in March 2019.

Beltran pointed out that the June 10, 2021, contract of Gabunada, who would get P909,122.40 as communications strategy consultant from June 16 to Dec. 15, 2021, was “legal and aboveboard” and there was no conflict of interest even if he held various positions in state-run corporations.

Gabunada sits in the board of United Coconut Planters Bank and its subsidiary, UCPB Leasing and Finance Corp.

He said the consultancy fee of Gabunada, who was reported to be close to Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III as they both hailed from Davao, was “reasonable for this type of highly technical service” and that it complied with all procurement laws and rules. Beltran heads the DOF’s bids and awards committee.

Brand development

Gabunada would specifically “assist in developing a brand and communications strategy for the DOF to aid in the swift passage of the remaining packages of the Comprehensive Tax Reform Program plus other priority government measures,” according to Beltran.

He would also align system-wide communications covering the DOF and its attached agencies, among them the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs.

Beltran said part of Gabunada’s role would be to help the DOF in the production and development of communications materials for television, print and digital channels (social media and website), including the identification and coordination with third-party communications partners.

“Gabunada was tapped to help raise public awareness over, and support for, the Duterte administration’s remaining priority measures such as its pending economic bills and proposed capital market development reforms that are being pushed by the DOF in the third and final session of the 18th Congress,” Beltran said.

Gabunada told the Inquirer on Tuesday that it was the DOF itself which sought his service.

He noted that since the contract’s fee was below P1 million, he and the DOF directly negotiated instead of a public bidding, which procurement regulations mandated for higher-valued contracts.

Fake accounts

Last Monday, Gabunada also tweeted: “To those who simply depend [on] ‘Googling’ as background research for their stories: ‘Before you assume, try this crazy method called ‘asking,’” referring to recent reports highlighting anew his links to fake social media accounts supporting President Duterte that were banned by Facebook.

In 2019, Facebook’s chief of cybersecurity policy Nathaniel Gleicher said that 67 Facebook pages, 68 accounts, 40 groups and 25 Instagram accounts operating in a network built by Gabunada were banned for taking part in a “coordinated and inauthentic behavior.”

“Our investigation could confirm that this was a cluster of coordinated behavior that is linked to a network organized by Gabunada,” Gleicher said. “What we saw is this cluster of pages and groups … a combination of authentic and fake accounts that were basically being used to drive messaging on behalf of, and related to, local [election] candidates.”

Gleicher said that some 3.6 million accounts followed one or more of the banned pages and about 1.8 million accounts joined at least one of the groups, while there were 5,300 accounts that followed one or more of the Instagram accounts.

“They were designed to look independent, but in fact we can see that they were coordinated on the back,” he explained. “A lot of messaging was pro, sort of supporting the candidates they were working in behalf of, some would be attacking political opponents of those candidates.”

Facebook’s investigation showed that the managers spent at least $59,000 (about P3 million) for advertisement, Gleicher added.

In a statement issued on Monday, Gabunada’s lawyers threatened to take legal action against those who maliciously “keep bringing up the solely business prerogative of Facebook in tagging and maligning [Gabunada] and connecting it with this totally separate and aboveboard (DOF) agreement.”