The months leading up to the May 2022 elections welcome man’s greatest enemy into its open arms: false information.
Running mates Senator Panfilo Lacson and Senate President Vicente Sotto were not wrong to warn Filipinos against distorted facts in light of the campaign season. Candidates have been the primary victims of false endorsements and election trolls. A study conducted by the World Health Organization, Wunderman Thompson, University of Melbourne, and Pollfish shows that over half of Generation Z is aware of its ongoing fight against falsehood.
The culprit then is not ignorance—it is our complacency with and undervaluing of truth. It is widespread disloyalty of today’s generation to what’s true, setting their future up for failure.
Due to its rigid nature, the truth falls out of priority when it is coupled with other issues. It lacks what other social reforms have relied on: the emotional attachment people need to push for change. Many dismiss this problem as minor, failing to realize that the mishandling of truth fuels some of the world’s biggest social and environmental issues.
One such example is gender inequality. Despite being recognized as one of the most gender-equal Asian countries, Philippine politics is a male-dominated field. For instance, females comprised only 28% of the national government in 2020. This data is reflected in our current campaign season. Vice President Leonor “Leni” Robredo has been a victim of disinformation for years, being branded as an incapable leader simply because she is female. This is a prevalent belief, with President Rodrigo Duterte discouraging his daughter Sara Duterte to run for presidency due to her gender. The lies spread about Robredo—such as the wrongly-accused fraud in the 2016 vice-presidential elections and the phrase “Leni Lugaw” which gained popularity in representing “her weakness” and “a lack of substance”—push the male-oriented mindset by discrediting her achievements. The existing prejudices have also made many more vulnerable to false information, as confirmation biases (accepting information that supports personal beliefs and ignoring the flaws) make people less likely to fact-check.
Aggravating the situation, advancements in technology do not only further proliferate fake news, but also drown attempts to combat it. Lacson echoed this when he said, “The use of social media platforms has almost become the qualifying barometer in educating—but ironically, also disinformation to the point of deceiving—our people.” Here, he supported the Comelec’s policy to verify the candidates’ social media platforms before using them for campaign advertisement.
The use of digital platforms for information has become more prevalent in recent years. According to polls by Common Sense Media last 2019, 50% of teens received their news from YouTube and only 40% of them would consistently follow accredited news organizations. Unfortunately, the easy access to social media leaves a barrage of published data unchecked. Many fail to see the harm in sharing unverified posts and letting others fact-check data, leaving many lies in circulation.
Some may argue that technology has also given life to various fact-checking institutions that work to call out unverified information on online platforms. Given time, one would expect that these would surely leave their mark.
In reality, their success is dependent on the public’s willingness to stand for the truth. Without the combined initiative of each social media user to denounce lies, the overwhelming amount of fabricated data would trump these efforts.
False information is society’s silent killer. Electing a leader based on emotional appeal and distorted truths is an abuse of democracy and freedom of choice.
Although many of us are still ineligible to vote, there are a variety of ways to campaign against false information such as following fact-checking posts, evaluating sources, and calling-out fake news. The frontliners of this battle cannot be reserved for journalists and a handful of individuals. As citizens, each of us has an obligation to the truth and a responsibility to uphold it no matter our biases.
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