Hundreds of Filipinos flocked to the National Housing Authority’s office in Quezon City hoping to get into the agency’s free housing program now available under President Rodrigo Duterte’s administration. However, the NHA vehemently denied offering such a program, according to an ABS-CBN report.
Those who lined up at the NHA office said that they still came after hearing about the free housing offer from their neighbors and the social media sites. The ABS-CBN report also showed a blog claiming that Duterte has already approved the program and that free houses will only be available to those who can get their reservations at the NHA.
The manager of the NHA information division Florian de Leon said that they have never offered zero-cost housing because even those offered by the government are still given to beneficiaries with a payment scheme similar to rent-to-own houses.
“In its 40 years of existence, it’s not a policy of NHA. Walang libre,” de Leon said.
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De Leon also appealed to the people not to go to the NHA and reminded the blogs and social media pages to be careful in giving information to avoid creating ‘disinformation’ and raising ‘false hopes’ among the Filipinos.
Misleading blogs and Facebook posts
Memebuster went on to search for the blogs spreading the hoax about free housing on social media and came upon this Facebook post.
The post even urged readers to click on the link to know how to avail of the program and to share the news. It was posted on July 16 and as of writing, has earned 4,200 reactions and 4,179 shares. It also leads to this blog claiming to be “Media ni Duterte.”
Given how this post was shared thousands of times, it’s no wonder it managed to convince so many people into believing the hoax.
However, the NHA hoax is not the first false claim this blog has made. One of their misleading articles is about the Chinese national caught with P6.2-million worth of shabu in Cebu to be the “first victim of death penalty.” Memebuster has already busted it with this article here.
The misleading articles were written by a certain Renato S Lugto Jr. So if you ever come across his blog touting to be a Duterte media, think several times over before believing whatever he writes and verify them through credible media first.
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