About a week ago, the story of a man being raped by his girlfriend at least twelve times went viral on Facebook. According to the source of the story, the events transpired in Bontoc, Mt. Province. Here's the problem: the story was faked. It never happened. It's just the handiwork of a website owner stirring as much controversy as possible to drive traffic to his website. In a way, it worked well for the website owner because hundreds (if not thousands) of people shared and reshared the story.
This brings us to the question: why did people readily believe the story when there's a ton of red flags indicating that it's fake? This is not to say that the rapes couldn't have happened. After all, we have heard and seen more boggling stories. The moment you arrive on the website where the story was published, it immediately speaks for itself. That it's a website not worth putting your trust into.
Let us forget about how shoddy the design of the website is. Let us forget about the fact that there's no name attached to the news story. And let's forget about the fact that there's no information as to what the website is all about (what's it for and who's behind it).
For the time being, let's forget about the things above and focus on what the writer really wrote and tried to pass out as news. First of all, the piece is just rife with errors (both grammar and logical errors). The writer didn't even bother capitalizing the first name of the alleged suspect. Second, there's not a single thing to corroborate the story. Not a single name. Who's the suspect? There's none to indicate that she's a minor thus meriting anonymity. Who's the psychologist? Even the place where it allegedly happened was just described as "a remote barangay".
ABS-CBN News had a story on the hoax and interviewed the authorities in Bontoc. There's nothing in the police records. With that all said, this should be the end of this nonsense.And here's a little bit of advice: question everything.
