Gaslighting the public: when narratives stop adding up

By Herman M. Lagon

The strangest thing about last week’s Senate hullabaloo was not even the gunshots. Filipinos are no strangers to noisy politics and emotional press briefings. Still, what disturbed many people last week was not just the Senate shooting narrative itself, but the sense that the public was being asked to doubt its own eyes.  Days after the Senate “under attack” narrative spread, the debate became less about bullets and more about credibility, perception, and whether people were being pushed to accept a dramatic version of events despite obvious contradictions. In many ways, the bigger story became the public’s growing awareness of gaslighting and political fallacies.

Gaslighting is usually discussed in toxic relationships. Many teachers know it well, even if they do not always call it by name. A teacher catches students whispering during an exam, only for the entire row to insist, “Wala po talaga, Ma’am.” A student clearly uses a phone under the desk, then suddenly five classmates defend him as innocent. Over time, repeated denial chips away at confidence. The teacher starts second-guessing herself. “Did I really see it? Am I overreacting?” That quiet confusion is often how gaslighting works. It slowly pushes people to doubt their own memory and judgment. Recent psychological and political analyses argue that gaslighting has increasingly moved beyond personal relationships into politics and public discourse (Stern, 2023; Barca, 2025). In politics, gaslighting does not merely confuse one person. It can disorient an entire population.

That is why the phrase “The Senate was under attack” landed differently for many Filipinos. The issue was not that danger was impossible. Any firearm discharge in a public institution is serious. But many viewers noticed inconsistencies almost immediately. Reports described “warning shots,” while the language used publicly suggested a siege-like scenario. Videos circulated online showing relatively calm moments, livestreams, smiling faces, and even references to buffet dinners after the supposed chaos. People began noticing gaps that felt difficult to ignore. If the Senate had truly been “under attack,” why did some scenes appear surprisingly calm? Why were there still conflicting versions about who fired first and what exactly happened despite CCTV footage and heavy security? The public reaction was less about being anti-Senate and more about resisting narratives that seemed disconnected from what many believed they saw themselves.

What emerged afterward was almost a national seminar on logical fallacies. Even students in Philosophy 101 probably found themselves unexpectedly reviewing lessons from introductory logic classes. One common fallacy people noticed was appeal to fear. Framing the event as an “attack on the Senate” naturally triggered anxiety and urgency. Fear has a way of suspending careful thinking. A frightened public asks fewer questions. Another was loaded language. “Under attack” evokes terrorism, armed invasion, and institutional collapse. Yet if the facts were still unclear or involved warning shots from within security operations, critics argued that the wording itself may have amplified the event beyond available evidence. In ordinary life, this happens more often than people think. A barangay argument becomes “giyera.” A loud disagreement at home becomes “sinisira mo buhay ko.” Strong words reshape emotional reality long before facts fully arrive.

Then there was the red herring. While public attention fixated on whether the Senate was “under attack,” other unresolved questions quietly drifted to the background: Who authorized what? Why were lights reportedly turned off? What exactly happened during Senator Ronald dela Rosa’s departure? Why were some details changing depending on who was speaking? Red herrings are effective because they redirect emotional energy away from uncomfortable questions. Many know this instinctively. A parent asks, “Nasaan ang sukli?” and the child suddenly changes the topic. We know this move well, whether at home or in politics.

Some reactions mirrored the classic DARVO pattern: deny, attack, reverse victim and offender. Instead of calmly addressing inconsistencies, critics and questioning journalists were framed as unfair or anti-Senate. The danger starts when asking questions becomes treated as betrayal rather than citizenship.

Maybe that is why many quickly noticed the pattern. For years, people have lived through conflicting political narratives, from “everything is under control” during the pandemic to corruption probes dismissed as mere political drama. As Freedom House noted in 2023, organized online influence campaigns continue shaping public opinion here. Repetition has a way of slowly turning narratives into accepted truth. Psychologists call this the “illusory truth effect.” Filipinos simply call it “paulit-ulit na script.”

Still, fairness requires restraint too. Public suspicion alone is not proof of conspiracy. Memes are not evidence. Viral comments are not court rulings. There is also danger when cynicism becomes automatic and every public statement is instantly dismissed as theater. Democracies collapse not only from blind obedience, but also from total distrust where citizens stop believing anything at all. Political theorist and philosopher Hannah Arendt warned that the danger of repeated deception is not simply believing lies, but eventually losing trust in truth itself. When people stop trusting anything, truth itself begins to lose value.

Teachers might find this familiar. Gaslighting often grows where authority feels unstable. In classrooms, students may manipulate through collective denial. In politics, leaders may focus more on controlling perception than clarifying facts. That is why consistency matters. Shouting is not evidence, and emotional delivery is not proof. Clear timelines, steady statements, and accountability still matter most. We tend to be understanding people, but they also notice when stories stop adding up. They forgive mistakes more easily than arrogance. What they struggle to forgive is the feeling of being toyed with.

One reason this Senate episode resonated so strongly is because many already feel psychologically exhausted. Teachers juggle impossible workloads while hearing speeches about educational reform. Jeepney drivers hear economic optimism while fuel prices eat daily earnings. Employees are encouraged to “stay strong” while many quietly compute how to survive until the next salary release. That is why people become sensitive to narratives that seem out of touch with ordinary life. When reality on the ground does not match official framing, skepticism follows almost automatically. Not always because they hate government, but because reality itself begins to feel contested.

A week after the Senate shooting narrative exploded online, perhaps the lasting lesson is not whether one political camp won the argument. The deeper lesson is how Filipinos are slowly learning to detect manipulation in real time. The memes may have been funny, sometimes too cruel, but beneath the humor was a public trying to protect its grip on reality. That matters. No democracy survives on speeches alone. It survives when citizens keep thinking critically even when fear, anger, or loyalty cloud the conversation. Somewhere between fanaticism and cynicism is a quieter responsibility: to look carefully, compare stories, and refuse to surrender common sense. Once truth becomes negotiable, the damage starts long before any gunfire fades.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and why-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed or connected with.