G-SPOT

By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

After Congressman Romeo Acop’s death, having read so many comments maligning his character, I posted on my timeline, “Respeto” dated 04 January 2026:

“Hindi ko personal na kakilala ang dating Congressman Acop pero ako ay naiskandalo sa mga sinasabi nila sa kanya, lalo na’t nasaksihan ko ang kanyang performance as a legislator. Ang bilis magparatang ng walang batayan, ang mga taong di man lang siya nakilala at nakakaalam kung ano ang mga nagawa niya. Ipinagdiriwang pa ang pagkamatay niya bilang parusa ng Dios. Lahat ay namamatay, mabuti man o masama, maski ikaw ay Nepo baby na lumulutang sa perang nakamkam ng dinastiya o anak ng mambabatas na binigyan ng pagkakataong magkamal ng bilyon-bilyon galing sa napakalaking prangkisa. O kaya’y bayarang troll.

Ang Dios ay kasama natin hanggang sa huling sandali. Salamat po sa tapat na panunungkulan. Dios ti agalwad kaniayo.”

It was meant to thank Congressman Acop for his role in the QUADCOMM, a body composed of four committees created in 2024 by the House of Representatives acting as a mega-panel “to conduct a comprehensive joint investigation into possible connection between illegal Philippine offshore gambling operators (POGOs), illegal drugs, extrajudicial killings (EJKs) and human rights violations in the course of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s bloody drug war.”

As of 23 January 2026, the post gathered 95,801 views, more than 3,700 reactions, 445 comments, 75 shares and 6,104 engagements. It could have ballooned into more views had I replied to the comments, but I didn’t. I knew I will be dragged into the mire. The reactions and comments were varied but what stands out is the fact that most of them did not comment on his performance based on evidence. A lot of the responses came from troll farms as can be recognized from the gutter langiuage, mostly curses. From those who didn’t curse and threaten me with bodily harm, they didn’t care much about the truth, and mainly relied on their feelings and personal beliefs. Any assertion to the contrary, any factual rebuttal, will be useless under these circumstances. Truth has lost its currency in political and public conversations, secondary only to the individual’s political point of view (POV).

In the age of post-truth, anything can be true, if you believe it to be true: a) the earth is flat, b) you can conceive and still be a virgin, and c) Mayon Volcano can erupt in Naga.People no longer rely on their better judgment to find the truth by validating what they believe based on history, geography and scientific evidence. If they believe so, it is so.

“Post-truth” was first coined in 1992 by Serbian-American playwright Steve Tesich, but researchers often point to an earlier, similar concept, “defactualization” coined by Hannah Arendt’s work in 1972. The term was first used by Tesich in an essay for The Nation titled “A Government of Lies,” published in January 1992 “to describe the public’s reaction to the Watergate scandal, the Iran-Contra affair, and the Gulf War, arguing that Americans had decided to live in a “post-truth world” where they preferred comforting lies to uncomfortable facts.”

Ralph Keyes popularized the term and developed the concept further in his 2004 book, “The Post-Truth Era: Dishonesty and Deception in Contemporary Life”. The use of the term gained widespread traction in 2016, as it got mainstreamed internationally, driven by the Brexit referendum and the US presidential elections, prompting leading dictionaries to recognize “post-truth” as the “2016 Word of the Year”.