The scourge of fake news is continually plaguing our information environment and is vividly

affecting the Filipino people’s sense of nationalism. Fake news has been quite a buzzword in

today's generation as it evolves rapidly like a worldwide phenomenon. Its meaning is highly

different from false information. The aforementioned term is deeply associated with political

context in the Philippines for many years now used for political agenda or propaganda. But to

dive into an in-depth explanation, fake news can very closely mimic real news and more

established news media organizations. It is created to deliberately fabricate a large number of

individuals by giving false information that is full of deceitful content that appears to be taking

advantage of people’s vulnerability and cognitive processes. Just like what happened during the

2016 election, when Sen. Bongbong Marcos ran for vice president. Back then, he and his

supporters exploited social media to spread fake news as his family staged a political comeback.

The corroborated topic is the word nationalism. In layman’s terms, nationalism refers to the

sentiments of love and devotion toward the nation that is shared by the people. Google Scholars

asserts that it revolves around two dilemmas: people-oriented nationalism and power-oriented

nationalism. As a democratic country, we are considered as people-oriented nationalists who

look after the welfare of our country and its people. But that varies depending on what kind of

beliefs we have in mind.

Many people would say that the prevalence of fake news cannot affect their sense of nationalism.

Some are those who may not take the topic in a serious manner and those who are firm enough to

justify their claims because they believe that their arguments at hand are well supported by facts.

As I read up on this topic, they are the people who mostly use Facebook as their platform and

source of information. According to Quilinguing (2019), Facebook can be accessible by the

largest number of people in the country. In recent data from We Are Social and Hootsuite, cited
by Llamas (2020), about 76 million Filipinos out of 107. 3 million have access to the internet and

about 97 percent of these users are using Facebook compared to the 54 percent use of Twitter.

Basically, they tamper themselves with all the given information they see and hear on Facebook

without verifying the sources behind it. To understand the role of those people who think that

their claims are backed up by reliable sources and verified websites. Prof. Clarissa David, a Mass

Communication professor at the University of the Philippines stated that there are some cases

where purveyors tend to mimic websites with similar uniform resource locators (URLs).

While reading through these kinds of references, I can say that we cannot blame the Filipino

people in these types of circumstances especially those who lack political knowledge due to the

existence of widespread failure of political discourse. Besides, there are people in this country

who live far away from the urbanized area that has limited access to services and information.

People that are not privileged enough to have television and internet access to attain all the data

they need. Therefore, they are the very people who tend to be more susceptible to believing fake

news especially during the whole phase of the election (Lee, 2020). Electoral candidates go to

their respected areas and give them basic needs and services that is only available and feasible

throughout their candidacy period. It is affecting their sense of nationalism in a way that they

unconsciously put incapable and inefficient public officials in power caused by their lack of

awareness as they are not able to perform a background check. The strength of such an approach

is that putting public officials in power corresponds to voting them. In that case, they are still

capable of showing their commitment and love for our country despite being unaware and

uneducated.

To a substantial extent, their reasons are considerable and valid. But it is sad to say that there are

a large number of Filipinos that are still oblivious and insensible, they inclined their credence
with other people without critically analyzing the presented matters all by themselves.

Unfortunately, it seems like fake news has been creating a lynch mobs out of a certain people

making us more divided as it destroys how others perceive things and establish rapport (Lorenzo,

2018). While these facts are beyond disappointing, Flores (2018) points out that fake news

possesses certain features that make some people likely to trust. Admitting the fact that they have

all the means, we have distinct levels of understanding. Every one of us are victims of distorted

truths made by the public officials who promised to serve us. As stated in the article of Lorenzo

(2018), Sen. Nancy Binay lambasted Mocha Uson as to why she is one of the officials who used

to spread fake news for the sake of the image of the administration (Lorenzo, 2018).

To sum it all up, as citizens in this country, we play a very crucial role in the said issue, that is

why it is important to help our fellow countrymen to think critically by patiently educating them

little by little without sounding condescending. Through this, we can hopefully shed light on

possible ways to stop the spread of more damage from fake news. It is also a must to demand

accountability. Although fake news is not as pervasive as it seems, it affects the people’s sense of

nationalism in the worst way we could imagine. Hence, the administration needs to be pressured

enough to lay down strategies and stop being the perpetrators of such a phenomenon.