While thousands of Filipinos are still reeling from the devastation of the magnitude-6.9 earthquake in Cebu, a big fire in Davao City, and flooding in many parts of the country, social media was swamped with political disinformation this past weekend, depicting a government in serious disarray.
Recycled rumors about yet another change in the Senate leadership today, Oct. 6, with the pro-Duterte bloc supposedly getting enough numbers to unseat Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and replace Panfilo Lacson as chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee, appear to be the most widely circulated among consumers of news. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano will supposedly be installed as Senate president.
The rumor has been going around since shortly after Lacson was named to lead the investigation of the flood control scandal, more so after a number of incumbent and former senators were tagged in anomalous projects.
Lacson’s statement on Sunday that he would step down as Blue Ribbon chairman, in response to the apparent dissatisfaction among his colleagues in his leadership, added fuel to the speculation about the Cayetano-led coup.
Sotto’s leadership and Lacson’s steering of the Blue Ribbon Committee are way better than those before them. If the Senate leadership change pushes through, it means those behind it are throwing accountability out the window for their political survival, specifically those who would jump to the Cayetano side because they would not want the flood control probe to get to their own budget insertions.
From the other chamber, a one-minute, 48-second video of Dasmariñas City Rep. Kiko Barzaga has been spreading since Saturday, calling for people power and the ouster of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “due to his inability to bring justice for the hundreds of billions stolen from the DPWH flood control funds.” He urged the public, “starting Oct. 12, 2025,” to “work towards freeing our beloved country from the hands of the greedy and corrupt.”
Barzaga’s video on his Facebook account has garnered 232,000 comments, 21,000 likes and 135,000 shares, 21 hours after it was posted. Several comments hailed him as a hero, ready to die for the country to be free from tyranny, corruption and abuse of power.
Before these, we’ve seen several posts questioning the credibility and impartiality of Lacson and Baguio City Mayor Benjamin Magalong in investigating the flood control anomalies. Magalong’s resignation as special adviser to the Independent Commission for Infrastructure was triggered by a statement from Palace Press Officer Claire Castro that Malacañang was seeking clarity on a potential conflict of interest between his roles.
“So, let us clarify. He was appointed by the president as special adviser and not lead investigator or any other form of investigator,” Castro said in Filipino at a Sept. 26 press briefing. But last Sept. 13, when she announced the composition of the ICI, she said that as special adviser, Magalong “will act as investigator for the ICI.” A press release from the Presidential Communications Office on the same day described Magalong’s role as “special adviser who will act as an investigator of the Commission.”
Talk about an attempt to grab power, with support from a big religious group, persists. It was supposed to happen on Sept. 21, when various sectoral organizations led protest rallies on EDSA and activist groups had a separate mobilization in Luneta and later marched to EDSA. The violent protest later that day by masked rallyists at the Mendiola Bridge was allegedly planned to culminate in the burning of Malacañan Palace and eventually occupying it.
And then the claim that Sen. Risa Hontiveros has her own budget insertions of more than P3 billion, including P750 million in flood control projects in the 2025 General Appropriations Act.
The public is getting swamped with false, misleading, or completely fabricated information that creates confusion, anxiety, fear and distrust, aggravating the anger and stress over the rising cost of living and our daily struggles with congested traffic and inefficient government services.
These political rumors won’t get us anywhere positive. From the promise of “change is coming” in 2016 to a “UniTeam” in 2022 to bring us to the path toward development and economic prosperity, we seem to have been led to the road to perdition.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.
This column also appeared in The Manila Times.
