VERA Files will train writers of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) on fact-checking at no cost to the government.
“I don’t want my writers to be purveyors of fake news,” Press Secretary Cesar B. Chavez said when he approached VERA Files last October to conduct a fact-check training for his department’s regional directors.
Fact-checking is the act of determining if statements in a non-fictional text are true and correct. Falsehoods are debunked with verified facts.
The Memorandum of Agreement signed by PCO, the lead communications arm of the government, and VERA Files, an independent, non-profit media organization dedicated to promoting excellence in journalism, underscored that VERA Files will not be compensated for its services.
Participants will include employees from regional units of state media outfits such as the People’s Television Network Inc. (PTV), Radyo Pilipinas (formerly Radyo ng Bayan), Intercontinental Broadcasting Corporation (IBC-13), Philippine Information Agency (PIA) and the Philippine News Agency (PNA).
The selected participants are expected to cascade their learnings to their colleagues.
PCO said the fact-check trainings align with the government’s ongoing “Maging Mapanuri” campaign to promote media literacy and combat misinformation.
VERA Files has been conducting fact-check trainings for high school and university students, members of civil society groups, persons with disabilities, Sangguniang Kabataan and overseas Filipino workers, putting into practice its belief that everyone can be and should be a fact-checker in the fight against disinformation, which topped the global risks identified by the World Economic Forum in 2024.
The training will include spotting online misinformation, disinformation and malinformation, which have become more challenging with the use of artificial intelligence (AI).
VERA Files is a signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network, an organization of more than 170 fact-checking groups all over the world and sets the standard for transparent and non-partisan fact-checking.
VERA Files is a third-party fact-checker of Meta (formerly Facebook) in the Philippines.