How the truth is lost

By Michael Henry Yusingco, LL.M

How do we find the truth?

We rely on institutions whose purpose is to establish facts. For instance, when a crime occurs, the police investigate. When questions remain unresolved, the courts weigh evidence, hear witnesses, and arrive at findings. None of these institutions are perfect, but they provide society with common reference points from which people can begin to understand reality.

But what happens when those sources of facts are no longer trusted?

This question has become increasingly difficult to ignore because public confidence in institutions appears more fragile than ever. Every major event is immediately accompanied by competing narratives. Official statements are met with suspicion. An investigation is examined not only for what it finds, but for what it may be hiding.

The instinct is understandable. History teaches that institutions are capable of mistakes, bias, and even deception. Healthy scepticism is often necessary in a democracy. Blind trust can be just as dangerous as blind disbelief. Yet there is a difference between scepticism and cynicism. Scepticism asks for evidence. Cynicism assumes that evidence itself is manufactured.

When a crime or an unfortunate event occurs, people naturally turn to authorities for answers. The police are often the first institution expected to gather facts, preserve evidence, and establish what happened. But increasingly, public reactions begin from a different premise: that the official version cannot be trusted.

This can be seen whenever calls emerge for an “independent” or “impartial” investigation. Such calls are often justified. Independent oversight is an important safeguard against abuse. Yet the popularity of these demands also reveals something deeper. They suggest that many citizens no longer believe the regular investigative process is capable of producing trustworthy answers on its own.

The problem becomes even more complicated when members of law enforcement themselves become sources of controversy. Misconduct by a few officers can cast doubt on the institution as a whole. High-profile failures can linger in public memory long after the facts of a particular case have faded. Trust, once lost, is difficult to rebuild.

Sadly, social media amplifies challenges to truth-seeking. Before investigators can establish facts, countless theories begin circulating online. Some are plausible. Others are speculative. Many are built on innuendo and intrigue. A photograph without context, an anonymous post, a clipped video, or a vague allegation can spread to millions of people before any official findings are released.

In the past, the challenge was often access to information. Today, the challenge is navigating an overabundance of it. Citizens are no longer deciding whether information exists; they are deciding which among thousands of competing claims deserves belief. The sheer volume of information overwhelms the traditional sources of facts.

This creates a dangerous paradox. Distrust of institutions drives people toward alternative sources of information. But many of those alternatives have even fewer mechanisms for verification and accountability. In trying to escape perceived bias, people may become more vulnerable to misinformation, manipulation, or outright falsehoods.

Truth-seeking depends on shared facts. Political disagreements can be managed when citizens at least agree on what happened. Courts can function when evidence is accepted as evidence. Public debates can remain productive when participants share a common understanding of reality.

But when trust in the sources of facts collapses, consensus becomes nearly impossible. Every conclusion becomes contested. Every investigation becomes suspect. Every institution becomes vulnerable to accusations of cover-up. The truth is still out there. Facts remain facts. What disappears is society’s ability to agree on where those facts can be found.

So where do we go from here?

Can institutions regain public trust without first demonstrating greater transparency and accountability? Can citizens remain appropriately sceptical without becoming reflexively cynical? Can social media be a space for public scrutiny without becoming a machine for endless speculation?

Most importantly, if we no longer trust the police, the courts, the schools, the media, or any institution charged with establishing facts, what replaces them?

A society can survive disagreement. Democracies are built upon it. But can a society function when it no longer trusts the very mechanisms designed to discover the truth? This may be one of the defining questions of our time.