The Trolls Are Working Overtime — But That Doesn't Mean Every Question Is Off-Limits
As the International Criminal Court held its confirmation of charges hearing against former President Rodrigo Duterte this week (February 23–27, 2026), a familiar Filipino political reflex kicked in: when you can't argue the facts, attack the witnesses.
Sheerah Escudero — sister of Ephraim Escudero, an 18-year-old cellphone repairman found dead in Angeles City, Pampanga in September 2017 — has been at the center of a coordinated pile-on. The disinformation has been so aggressive and so thoroughly debunked that Threads, Facebook, and fact-checkers from Rappler, AFP, Al Jazeera, News5, and Reuters have all had to weigh in. And yet the narratives keep mutating. So let's take each claim seriously — and be honest about where the evidence actually lands.
Claim 1: "Her brother died before Duterte — it wasn't EJK"
This one is straightforwardly false. Ephraim Escudero went missing on September 19, 2017, and his body was found on September 24, 2017 — more than a year into Duterte's drug war, which began the day Duterte took office on July 1, 2016. There is no version of the timeline where this happened "before Duterte." Multiple outlets including the Inquirer, Al Jazeera, and the University of Toronto documented the case as early as 2017 and 2018. This isn't even a close call.
Claim 2: "She's showing different photos of her brother — she's lying"
Also false, and extensively debunked. The viral posts showing Sheerah holding different men's photos in different appearances use altered screenshots — the original photo of Ephraim was digitally replaced with other men's faces. News5, the source of the original broadcasts, confirmed the originals were doctored. AFP, Al Jazeera, and Reuters independently verified this. Sheerah herself pointed out on Facebook that the altered photo "looks nothing like Ephraim."
There's also a fresh wave this week: an AI-generated image showing Sheerah and fellow drug war family advocates Llore Pasco and Rubilyn Litan carrying luxury designer bags in The Hague. More than two dozen pro-Duterte pages spread this in half a day — conveniently timed right after the ICC prosecution argued that Duterte's drug war deliberately targeted the poor because they had no means to file complaints. Human rights lawyer Atty. Maria Sol Taule publicly posted the unedited photo and clarified that Sheerah had even borrowed clothes for the cold Netherlands weather, because the families had no money to fly there on their own and relied on advocates' fundraising.
Claim 3: "How was Ephraim killed — riding in tandem or EJK? Which is it?"
This is actually a fair question, and the answer is: both descriptions can be true simultaneously, which is exactly what makes it murky. CCTV footage confirmed that on September 19, 2017, two men hitched a ride on Ephraim's motorcycle near Mabini Street in San Pedro, Laguna. He was last seen with these two men. Five days later, his body turned up in Angeles City — hogtied, hands and face wrapped in packaging tape, shot in the head. There was talk that one of the hitchhikers was an ex-convict and the other an intelligence agent.
"Riding in tandem" in the Philippine context usually refers to motorcycle-riding assassins who shoot a target and flee. That's not exactly what happened here. But the method of disposal — hogtied, head wrapped in tape, dumped far from home — was a documented signature pattern of drug war killings during that period, which the ICC prosecution itself highlighted this week. A Pampanga investigator reportedly acknowledged the killing may have been drug war-related. The police, for their part, refused to release any evidence or cooperate with the family's investigation.
Is it confirmed EJK linked to Duterte's policy? No. Is it consistent with thousands of similar killings from that period, and suspicious enough that the family deserves answers? Absolutely.
Claim 4: "Conveniently she's in The Hague to testify right now"
Sheerah is not technically a witness at the ICC confirmation hearing — she is one of 539 victims granted the right to participate in proceedings, represented by lawyers. The hearing is not a trial. It is a pre-trial stage where judges determine if there is enough evidence for charges to proceed. The "convenient timing" argument ignores that she has been publicly advocating for this since 2017 — nine years of waiting — and that the disinformation against her intensified specifically in response to her attending the hearing, not before it.
The Questions That Are Actually Worth Asking
Here's where an honest skeptic should focus energy instead.
The ICC prosecution charges cover 76 specific murders out of what human rights groups estimate may be 12,000 to 30,000 total deaths. That gap isn't conspiracy — it's a data problem rooted in the Duterte administration's deliberate opacity. The PNP admitted to 6,252 deaths from police operations. The higher estimates come from academic and media tracking of "unknown assailant" killings — bodies found with cardboard signs, riding-in-tandem shootings — that weren't officially logged. These numbers have not been independently verified and likely never will be, because the state controlled and withheld the records.
This week at the ICC, prosecutors presented the so-called "PRRD List" — an actual Excel spreadsheet naming drug suspects by region, ranked on a five-tier scale. An insider witness told the court: "If you are on the list, you will be the subject of police operations. And most of the time, the people on the list are killed. So basically, the PRRD list is a dead list." The same witness said police used the word "neutralize" as a kill order. Another witness testified that Tokhang operations were deliberately targeted at the poor because "they have no means to file a complaint."
That last detail is the most damning thing about the entire Sheerah Escudero disinformation campaign. The trolls asking "why would a poor family go to The Hague?" are — whether they realize it or not — echoing the exact logic that made ordinary Filipinos like Ephraim easy targets in the first place: poor people don't fight back, don't speak up, don't get to tell their story.
Sheerah Escudero is proving that assumption wrong. That's probably why they're working so hard to stop her.
What We Should Still Be Honest About
Marcos handed Duterte to the ICC, but let's not confuse that with a genuine commitment to EJK accountability. Marcos never repudiated the drug war as policy, never rescinded Duterte's orders, and his administration saw over 1,000 additional drug war deaths after he took office. His cooperation with the ICC is widely read as political rivalry, not principle. The families of EJK victims deserve better than to be used as pawns between two feuding political dynasties.
The data problem around EJK numbers is also real. Saying the "real number" is 30,000 without caveat overstates what can be proven. What is confirmed is a minimum of 6,252 deaths from police operations alone — a staggering figure on its own, without needing inflation. Honest advocacy doesn't need exaggeration.
And yes — not every single death tagged as EJK during that period was necessarily state-linked. The chaos of that era meant opportunistic killings by private actors also occurred. Healthy skepticism about individual cases is not the same as dismissing the systematic pattern. The two can coexist.
What cannot be honestly sustained is the idea that Sheerah Escudero is lying, paid off, or inventing a dead brother. The evidence for Ephraim's killing is contemporaneous, cross-verified, and consistent. The disinformation against her is not skepticism — it's a campaign to silence a grieving family before the ICC can hear their story.
Ephraim Escudero was 18 years old when he died. He left behind two young children. His motorcycle was never found.