EXCLUSIVE: Chinese operation taps Filipinos to access top security info

• Since 2023, the Philippines has been checking on Filipinos in and out of the government suspected of handing over confidential and secret documents to Chinese nationals. 
• A handful of persons — from within the Department of National Defense, the Philippine Navy, or with ties to the Philippine Coast Guard — were found working for Chinese bosses. 
• The Chinese bosses use social media scanning and social engineering to determine which Filipinos are most susceptible to doing the information leak. 
• The Philippines’ outdated laws make it difficult for security and defense agents to prevent and stop spying operations. 

FIRST OF THREE PARTS

Over the past three years, Chinese nationals have successfully recruited young and capable workers in the Philippine government or people close to them to gain access to the country’s top security and defense documents. 

In a handful of cases made known to Rappler, civilian staff of the defense department were found to have submitted to their Chinese bosses analyses culled from insider information, open source intelligence, and classified files. 

The common thread among these recruits, in their mid- to late-20s: they all had financially unstable families. 

The breach happened as the Philippines started implementing its transparency initiative to expose China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea. At the time, in 2023, a new defense and military leadership was just getting its footing. 

The recruitment efforts and network reached various sectors of the country’s security community — from the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), the Department of National Defense (DND), and the Philippine Navy. This was confirmed by Rappler with the Filipinos who were tapped in spying operations, as well as security sources who later identified thes spies. 

Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro, Jr. was “aware of efforts to coerce and coopt members of the defense and security sector,” according to DND spokesperson Assistant Secretary Arsenio Andolong Jr.

Teodoro, he added, was “constantly monitoring measures and procedures that he instituted and enhanced to protect our personnel from foreign malign influence and interference.”

“All personnel — military and civilian — are subject to established security protocols throughout their tenure, including background investigations, security clearances, and continuous monitoring in accordance with existing laws and regulations,” Andolong added. 

In a press conference on February 24, Philippine Navy spokesperson Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad highlighted a “trend for the past two years of foreign nationals from China who have allegedly been involved in espionage in the country.” He cited the case of foreigners caught faking identities, using drones and CCTV cameras to spy on Navy assets, or mapping out critical routes and infrastructure in the Philippines. 

In 2023, Rappler ran an exclusive report on a Chinese Ministry of State Security agent who entered and stayed in the Philippines as a journalist as he mapped out a vast network of influence and information across critical sectors. 

New battlefield: The Filipino mind

The discovery of a network that includes Filipinos is part of a larger security effort across the Philippine government in its shift to external defense. Alongside this is an understanding that defending the Philippines from outside threats means purging vulnerabilities from the inside, too. 

“The DND has explicitly stated that the new battlefield is the Filipino mind. Our adversaries are aggressively exploiting our cognitive domain and democratic space through corruption, lawfare, propaganda, disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation,” said Andolong.  

“Espionage and FIMI (Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference) are documented threats to our national security that require a no-nonsense response…. Their agents and collaborators are here, and they pose a very real threat to our nation. To respond to this, we need updated laws that will make it too costly for adversaries to conduct, and for Filipinos to participate in, FIMI operations,” he added. 

Proposals are pending before Congress that would update Commonwealth-era anti-espionage and foreign influence laws.  

It also indicates a larger apparent effort of Beijing, or at least by Chinese nationals, to create an information and espionage network that includes not just state agents or alleged state-contracted Chinese nationals, but Filipinos themselves. 

In a statement to Rappler, the Chinese embassy in the Philippine said allegations of China’s espionage activities in the country “are baseless accusations meant to smear the image of China.”

 “We firmly oppose and strongly condemn such malicious demonization of China,” said the embassy. 

The young, the brightest 

For over four months, Rappler spoke to at least four individuals who were lured and kept in this kind of work. 

In almost all cases, the Filipinos were first contacted through social media either by supposed recruiters or headhunters whom they had never met. One was recruited by a mentor and trusted friend who, it turned out, was herself a hub for a network. 

The hook for all four was that they were important, impressive, and intriguing, and that the job would primarily involve research and analysis, gathered through open source intelligence. These recruiters, called foreign intelligence entities (FIEs), purport to be from well-established or start-up research and consulting firms while leaving the details of the job — who the clients are, for instance — vague. 

The work begins long before the first message. 

“They usually convince disclosure [of secret or classified information] through a blend of psychological and social engineering, and personal manipulation,” a security source explained to Rappler.

Targets are usually people who: 

• Have access to classified and secret information, especially those related to military operations, military foreign operations, and the West Philippine Sea
• Have limited financial capabilities or are struggling financially
• Have personal, work, or family problems that cause “significant distress” 
• Are active on social media platforms and messaging services 
• May have existing misgivings over their work because of low pay, or how their superiors treat them.

Lawrence* and Allison*, both in their 20s when they were lured into spy work, were convinced, at first, that theirs were merely research and consulting side gigs. The promised pay was not large, but it was more than enough to augment their modest salaries as researchers of the DND. (*Names have been changed to protect their identities.)  

The two, alongside another friend, were just settling into their sometimes exciting, sometimes monotonous, work in 2023. Unknown to each other, they were recruited, through different means, by foreigners to access sensitive documents from the country’s security and defense agencies. Their bosses have since been confirmed by Rappler sources to be Chinese nationals. 

The Chinese embassy in the Philippines, responding to inquiries from Rappler, denied espionage activities by the state or by its citizens, labelling them “baseless accusations meant to smear the image of China.” 

“The Chinese government always asks Chinese nationals overseas to abide by local laws and regulations. We have no interest in interfering in [the] domestic affairs of other countries through any means or by directing any Chinese citizens. We urge certain individuals and institutions in the Philippines to respect facts and refrain from floating unfounded accusations and presumption of guilt in the absence of solid evidence,” said the embassy. 

Why was it crucial for the Chinese to tap Filipinos like Lawrence and Alison?

In 2023, the Philippine government’s transparency initiative publicized and internationalized China’s aggressive actions in the West Philippine Sea. The China Coast Guard and the Chinese Maritime Militia, in particular, made it a habit to harass Philippine vessels, whether through risky maneuvers or the use of watercannons. Teodoro then also ordered military officers to stop liaising directly with their Chinese counterparts. 

It was also in 2023 that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. made explicit a return to the United States, the Philippines’ only treaty ally. More Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) sites, or areas where American assets could be prepositioned, were approved. Yearly exercises with the Americans also increased in complexity and size. 

The Philippine-US relationship — in trade, politics, and defense — was on “hyperdrive” as relations with China turned tense.

For sure, Lawrence was well aware of these things even back in 2023, when he was just a fresh university graduate. So even then, an offer from a longtime mentor and friend already felt a little bit off. 

Red flags 

Harley*, a friend Lawrence had known since he was in senior high school, had reached out via instant messaging. She was looking for writers from different agencies across the government, supposedly for a research firm. Harley herself was working in another different government agency. 

The two had gone a long way. Harley was the one who offered Lawrence the university scholarship that she was about to graduate from, just in case he needed it. Lawrence found his own way to a university and maintained a friendship with Harley through the years. 

“In 2022, I posted a story [at the DND headquarters] and I said, ‘This is my new home.’ Ate Harley* replied to my story and asked: ‘Hey, you’re with DND?’” recalled Lawrence in a December 2025 interview with Rappler. 

Months later, in March 2023, Harley would message again, this time with an offer for a writing gig. 

The offer could not have come at a more perfect time. Lawrence had augmented his DND salary by accepting side hustles as a copywriter for clients abroad, but he was let go.

For Lawrence’s new work, Harley asked him to produce analyses, thought pieces, or op-eds that would provide insight into the Philippines. 

“I googled the company’s name, and it seemed like a very established company. But there was something in me that was hesitant…. Probably because of what she said about the nature of her work, that she’s looking for people in different government agencies,” said Lawrence. 

Lawrence managed to make a quip — to Harley then, and to Rappler over a year later: “Won’t this land me in jail?” 

These days, he no longer finds that joke funny. But back then, it was a crutch he relied on to justify his decision. With his own costly maintenance medicine and therapy, and his siblings soon starting university themselves, Lawrence decided to bite the bullet and join Harley’s coven of writers.

In Palawan, too, another young Filipino was slowly but surely being lured into the same scheme. Within two years, the Filipino man’s boss — whom Rappler and security officials have confirmed to be Chinese — would even visit the Philippines.

From three of the four Filipinos, the Chinese bosses wanted to know the same things: staffing details of the Philippines’ maritime units, where assets were being deployed, the dynamics of personalities in key security agencies, and operational and strategic plans to include, most tellingly, details of rotation and resupply (RORE) missions to the West Philippine Sea. – Rappler.com 

PART 2 | Threats within: Filipino spies in denial 
PART 3 | The price of stealing Philippines’ top security secrets