Every few months, a fresh wave of fake news sweeps through our Facebook feeds, and the familiar chorus begins: fact-checkers mobilize, media literacy campaigns refresh their decks, and editors write stern pieces about gullibility. The Philippines has been fighting this fight for years. We are not winning and the problem
May 8, 2026
When The Camera Becomes A Weapon There is a peculiar irony at the heart of the social media age. The same technology that democratized speech — that gave ordinary citizens a platform to speak truth to power — has also become the most sophisticated machinery for manufacturing that power’s lies.
May 7, 2026
A discussion paper released in December 2025 by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies should be required reading for every city planner, councilor, and developer in Western Visayas. Titled “Urban Revitalization and Shelter Inadequacy: A Geospatial Analysis,” the study by Jenica A. Ancheta, Marife M. Ballesteros, and Tatum P. Ramos
May 4, 2026
By Francis Allan L. Angelo I walked into this office in August 2002 looking for a job to tide me over before I went back to school. Lemuel Fernandez and Limuel Celebria interviewed me that morning and asked the kind of questions you do not expect from a regional newsroom — political leanings, ideological orientation,
April 29, 2026
Two public markets in the Visayas – one in Cebu City, the other in Iloilo City – are forcing Filipinos to confront an uncomfortable question: Who is urban development actually for? In Cebu, the Carbon Public Market – historically described as the “heart that pumps financial lifeblood to poor Cebuanos”
April 21, 2026
By Francis Allan L. Angelo An Ilongga vlogger based in Dubai, operating under the name Iloy Bugris, has been referred by the Presidential Communications Office to the Department of Justice for allegedly spreading fabricated claims about the health of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. Her Facebook page, Iloy Bugris: The Queen of Revelations, has 2.3 million
April 20, 2026
Somebody went on social media this week and did what has become reflexive for too many public servants in this country: label a news report “fake news” without identifying a single factual error. The report in question, written by Daily Guardian reporter Rjay Zuriaga Castor, covered the City Council’s approval
April 11, 2026
By Francis Allan L. Angelo A new peer-reviewed paper published this month in Information, Communication & Society puts a name to something many of us in Global South newsrooms have felt for years but could not always articulate cleanly: the counter-disinformation industry, for all its billions, has been asking the wrong questions and funding the
April 10, 2026
By Francis Allan L. Angelo Five weeks into a war with Iran, the United States is pulling THAAD missile defense batteries off the Korean Peninsula and shipping them to the Middle East. While at it, the one country in the world actively building nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles aimed at American cities is watching Washington strip
April 9, 2026
Sara Duterte is still ahead. That much is obvious from WR Numero’s March 2026 Philippine Public Opinion Monitor, where she holds 36 percent – a 3-point bump from November 2025. But fixating on the frontrunner misses what’s actually happening underneath. Raffy Tulfo gained 5 points in the same window. Leni
April 8, 2026
Most consumers do not spend their mornings thinking about the Wholesale Electricity Spot Market, and frankly they should not have to, but when power prices start behaving like a panic trade and fuel shocks abroad begin dictating what Filipinos may pay at home, the jargon suddenly becomes very personal. Think
March 31, 2026
There’s a particular kind of silence that settles over a community when its last local newspaper closes. It’s not dramatic. Nobody marches. The mayor doesn’t issue a statement. The barangay captain keeps holding court. Things just — continue, more or less as before, except that the next procurement anomaly goes
March 28, 2026