March 10, 2026
Fighting Historical Revisionism with Civic Tech
How technology and community-driven platforms can combat misinformation and preserve historical truth in the Philippines.
The Scale of the Problem
A 2022 study by the University of the Philippines found that a significant number of Filipino social media users had encountered historical revisionism content — and many believed it. Martial Law, in particular, has been subject to widespread reframing, with narratives calling it a “golden age” gaining traction online despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
Traditional fact-checking organizations do critical work, but they face an asymmetric battle. A misleading post can go viral in minutes, while a thorough fact-check takes hours or days to produce and reaches a fraction of the audience.
Where Technology Fits In
Civic technology — tools built to improve civic engagement and governance — offers a different approach. Instead of relying on a small team of fact-checkers, civic tech platforms empower communities to participate in verification at scale.
OnThisDay.PH applies this principle to historical events. By making source verification a core part of the submission process and enabling community voting on accuracy, we create a self-correcting system that gets more reliable as it grows.
Key Principles for Civic Tech
Through building OnThisDay.PH, we’ve identified several principles that make civic tech effective:
1. Lower the Barrier to Participation
If contributing requires specialized knowledge or complex processes, only a few people will do it. By using meme format and simple submission flows, we make it easy for anyone to participate.
2. Make Verification Transparent
Trust comes from transparency. Every source on OnThisDay.PH is publicly visible and clickable. Users don’t have to take our word for it — they can verify themselves.
3. Build for the Platform People Already Use
Filipinos live on social media. Building content that’s designed to be shared on these platforms meets people where they already are, rather than asking them to come to us.
4. Stay Non-Partisan
The moment a civic tech platform is perceived as aligned with a political faction, it loses credibility with half the population. OnThisDay.PH documents facts, not opinions. Accountability applies across the political spectrum.
The Road Ahead
Technology alone won’t solve historical revisionism. It takes educators, journalists, historians, and engaged citizens working together. But technology can provide the infrastructure — the shared, verified, accessible record — that makes that work more effective.
If you’re building civic tech or working on digital literacy in the Philippines, we’d love to connect. Together, we can build tools that make truth more accessible than misinformation.