There is no better way to start the discussion on the two media organizations than in describing them through the writings reflected in their websites. Below is the description of PNA as well as its mission statement, to quote:

The Philippine News Agency (PNA) is the Philippine government’s official web-based newswire service.

Born on March 1, 1973 with its newswire operations relying only on teletype machines and typewriters, PNA has evolved today as an internet-based news service agency that provides timely, factual and objective news and information to its subscribers, readers and a host of other clients here and abroad.

Mission: Provides daily news services to both local and foreign readers on the policies, activities, and programs of the Government and the Presidency.

Meanwhile, below is what is written in Rappler News’ “About” Page:

In simple terms, both PNA and Rappler are media organizations that have the general objective of providing factual information to the public via journalism.

Now, let us examine how the media organizations delivered the news about Chad Booc, a UP-graduate activist who recently died in an encounter with state forces last February 2022. Below are snippets of their respective news articles about Booc:

In Rappler News, Chad Booc is described in the headline as a Lumad teacher. Meanwhile, in the article produced by PNA, Chad is labeled as a NPA recruiter. Looking closely further at the gist of the news articles, the former focuses on reporting Booc’s death and the inconsistencies that went along on how he died, particularly in the context of state forces maliciously redtagging activists as terrorists. The latter on the other hand focuses on Chad Booc’s membership to the New People’s Army (NPA) and the Communist Party of the Philippines-NPA-National Democratic Front (CPP-NPA-NDF).

One might wonder, how can two media organizations which share the same purpose of delivering news have different sides to a story supposedly of one truth?

Two concepts can provide some explanation as to why two similar media organizations have different kinds of content. First, Croteau and Hoynes (2019) stated that media content is influenced in response to certain political constraints, particularly how media organizations comply with government regulations so as to avoid conflict. In terms of the PNA being the official state agency, news articles published in the website are therefore definitely aligning with the government’s plans on what they want the Filipinos to believe in. As such, because they continue to push the narrative of activists being terrorists, PNA continuously frames Booc as the leader of NPA and member of CPP-NPA-NDF.

The gatekeeping theory also explains how media organizations select which content is released to the public, since a gatekeeper “interacts with the organization, whose components must work together (Shoemaker & Reese, 2014, p. 137).” Factors such as economic concerns (value of each media content), power structures (organizational roles, structures, processes policies, and power) are always taken into consideration when publishing a media content.

The 2022 Philippine Presidential Elections has become a hot topic for both the national and international scene, wherein international news agencies such as The New York Times (NYT) and the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) have been closely monitoring and reporting the events transpiring in the Philippines both at the height of the presidential campaign period and at the publication of post-election results. Apparently, there presents the trend of post-truths, which was observed in the US since 2016 and has now found its way in the Philippines. Oxford Dictionary defines post truth as “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief” (2016, as cited in Cushion, 2019), and the epitome to this phenomenon is the presidential campaign of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

Marcos Jr. is the son of the late dictator, Ferdinand Sr., and the extravagant former first lady Imelda Marcos. As he came from a family of murderers and plunderers, he and his team consulted a British political consulting firm to “rebrand” the family image in 2016. Rebranding, in this sense, would mean literally erasing the atrocities his family has committed against the Filipino people during the Martial Law. The whistleblower of Cambridge Analytica, Brittany Kaiser, has detailed in an interview how this “rebranding” works:

So, as you call it historical revisionism, that's exactly what it is, but it's done in a data-driven and scientific way. So you undertake just enough research to figure out what people believe about a certain family, individual, politician and then you figure out what could convince them to feel otherwise. And you run tests until you actually start to see people's opinions and attitudes changing (ABS-CBN News, 2020).

Now more commonly known as BBM, he continues to benefit from years of widespread purveying of fake news and disinformation. This is even intensified now, as there surfaces reports of Facebook pages and groups, YouTube channels, and social media influencers being paid to actively participate in this political manipulation (Gavilan, 2022). From the “Tallano Gold” to the Philippines’ golden era under the Martial Law, he has effectively twisted the truth and convinced thousands of social media consumers who will be voting during the elections- so much so that he is currently set to be proclaimed as the 17th president of the Philippines.