META , formerly Facebook, took action against the fake news post of a pro-Duterte blogger that claimed that the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) used water cannons against the Chinese Coast Guard.
During Tuesday’s hearing of the House Tri-Comm presided over by Surigao del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel, Meta’s Director of Public Policy for Southeast Asia Dr. Rafael Frankel cited a post by blogger Mark Lopez as an example to explain how their platforms handle misinformation.
“So here is one example of a fact check on our platform. This is a fact check of a claim that a vlogger made that the Philippines had used water cannons against Coast Guard. This was rated false by our fact checker,” Frankel said.
“As you can see on the left side, this is the fact check, and on the right side, this is how the content that would not appear on our platform with the screen over it and a warning along with the label that explains that this is a false content,” he added.
Frankel was referring to his presentation. On the left reads: “Blogger Mark Lopez claims the Philippines uses water canon against China in the West Philippine Sea.”
On the right it says: “OUR VERDICT False: Despite repeated instances of China water bombing and ramming Philippine vessels, the Philippine government refuses to retaliate by using water cannons against China Coast Guard’s aggressive actions.”
Lopez is one of several pro-Duterte bloggers invited by Tri-Comm to attend its hearing.
During the last hearing, Lopez found himself in hot water when pressed about his own social media posts concerning the South China Sea.
Lopez apologized. “Sorry po, fake news po ako.”
The fact-checking was done by VERA Files on March 26, 2025, according to the post.
“This would also be the content that is reduced in distribution and so even getting into that content would be much less likely on the part of any user using our platforms,” Frankel stressed.
Aside from VERA Files, Frankel said Rappler and global news agency Agence France-Presse are Meta’s local third party fact-checkers.
