Sa special episode ng What The F?! podcast, tatalakayin ng VERA Files kasama ang political scientist na si Cleve Arguelles, ang mga maling impormasyong kumalat online ngayong 2025 at kung paano nito hinuhubog ang diskurso sa mga maiinit na isyu ngayon.

Perhaps the most basic valid question we can ask from these Davao Occidental and La Union projects is this: What role do these Duterte supporters play in the corruption mess? Apologists can argue that this may be incidental, unintentional, unwitting.But here’s the crux: were these politicians investigated for corruption under the Duterte administration? There the answer is clear as day – No.

In his letter to the then Speaker Romualdez, Paolo said that the “expenditures incurred from this trip are from my personal funds alone.” That was the only disclosure he mentioned. Nowhere in his letter did he state the purpose of the trip. That's point No. 1: the trip is cloaked in secrecy even if it meant the traveller was using official leave from his government job. That alone is an ethical dilemma.

Fact-checking is journalism. It is the straightforward work of comparing public claims against the best available evidence and publishing the results for all to see. This work strengthens public debate — it does not censor it. It is protected within the United States by the First Amendment, and the U.S. has long supported similar press freedoms internationally. To conflate this work with censorship is to misunderstand what fact-checkers do, or to deliberately misrepresent it.