When facts become survival

By Herman M. Lagon

A few weeks ago, a senior high adviser caught her class buzzing over a viral Facebook post. It claimed to offer new scholarships, and several students had already submitted their IDs. Instead of scolding, she quietly projected the official city scholarship page on the board and explained the difference. The room fell into an awkward hush, broken only by a few sheepish laughs. For those teenagers, the lesson was not abstract. The integrity of information had just meant the difference between hope and humiliation, between protection of identity and the risk of being scammed.

That small story came to mind when Nobel Laureate Maria Ressa addressed the United Nations on its 80th anniversary. She called information integrity “the mother of all battles,” warning that without it, everything else collapses—democracy, peace, even the possibility of agreeing on what is real. Her words did not feel distant or diplomatic. They echoed in classrooms like that one, in barangay halls, and in family chats where people still forward “miracle cures” or “secret leaks” without asking where they came from.

History offers a warning. The UN itself was born from the ruins of a world where propaganda dehumanized entire populations and made atrocities possible. Today, the tools are shinier, but the tactic is the same: bend the truth, stir division, and profit from outrage. A widely cited Massachusetts Institute of Technology study found that lies spread six times faster than facts on Twitter/X (Vosoughi, Roy, & Aral, 2018). With deepfakes now easy to make, and AI churning out convincing but false “evidence,” the cracks in our shared reality widen every day.

The cost is counted not only in confusion but also in lives. Ressa reminded the world that this is the deadliest period for journalists in modern history, with more than 240 killed in Gaza alone—more than in several major wars combined. The V-Dem Institute’s 2024 report further notes that 72 percent of the global population now lives under authoritarian rule. These are not just international figures. They show up in our own lives too: a nurse harassed online for correcting a fake cure, a teacher trolled for teaching media literacy, a city planner maligned for posting a simple rerouting map. UNESCO and UNICEF studies link online harassment with real-world violence, especially against women and youth. When facts are weakened, people themselves become the targets.

This is also a Philippine story. We know how social media shaped national politics since 2016. Studies have tracked how political operators blurred the line between entertainment, grievance, and propaganda to drown out slower, fact-checked reporting (Ong & Cabanes, 2018; Rappler Research, 2022). The classroom version is painfully familiar: a cropped video sparks outrage, a meme is repeated more faithfully than an article, and gossip overtakes study groups. The fault does not lie with one child or one platform alone. It lies in a system where outrage is more profitable than truth. Tech critic Cory Doctorow calls this slow decay “enshittification”: platforms start useful, then degrade as they chase revenue at the expense of their users. Teachers, parents, and students see the fallout daily.

Ressa’s three solutions point to a way out. First, end big-tech impunity by setting clear, binding rules for information integrity. This is about public safety, not censorship. Europe’s Digital Services Act is one model, and UNESCO’s 2023 guidelines urge oversight and due process in platform moderation. In our country, transparency should mean more than slogans. Imagine if every flood control or school project came with an easy-to-read dashboard showing the budget, contractor, and progress—ghost projects would find it harder to hide. The same goes for elections. Platforms must show who is really paying for political ads and troll farms. As one barangay captain joked, it is easier to check the price of tilapia than to know who funded a smear post. That should not be the case.

Second, build trust infrastructures close to the ground. Local newsrooms, schools, and parishes can partner to share updates via SMS or Viber channels that bypass manipulative algorithms. Campus papers can publish “source notes” showing how stories were verified. LGUs can keep procurement dashboards that barangays can check at a glance. Once, a school registrar stopped a viral panic with a single calm post: three steps to claim Form 137, with photos of the counter, office hours, and translations in Hiligaynon and Tagalog. The comment section turned from anger to gratitude. It was ordinary work, but it restored confidence.

Third, link information integrity to larger struggles: peace, inclusion, climate, dignity. Take flood control and flyover projects in Iloilo, where people recently marched after another round of knee-deep waters and grueling traffic jam. Technical reports are not enough; citizens deserve plain-language project timelines, contractor names, and penalties for delays. Schools can also weave media literacy into daily learning: a science class checking misleading charts, social studies comparing news sources, math problems testing viral percentages. These are not partisan lessons. They are maintenance, like checking if your lab equipment is calibrated before use.

At the heart of all this is courage—the everyday kind. Ressa has carried years of cases and threats, but courage also shows up in smaller acts: a librarian calmly shelving a children’s book despite a rumor about the author, parents double-checking health “tips” before sharing them in chats, or a Grade 8 section sticking to their “two-tab rule”—always verify with one more site. These are not glamorous habits, but they build muscle for truth. Leadership matters too. The UN moves slowly, but dialogue still beats silence. Locally, our leaders can set their own red lines: no anonymous government pages, no taxpayer-funded troll farms, mandatory disclosures for influencers tied to state contracts. Clear standards raise the cost of manipulation and make it easier for citizens to trust.

I have seen how a rumor can empty a classroom, but I have also seen students rebuild trust through small, steady choices: citing sources, correcting gently, pausing before hitting share. The times are loud, but the fixes sound quiet: steadier documents, kinder questions, cleaner apologies. Maria Ressa is right—information integrity underpins every other battle. Win it, and we can argue without tearing one another down and solve real problems like floods, jobs, and education together. Lose it, and we will drown in noise while those same problems get worse. The choice is clear. We must hold the line for facts that last.

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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.