VerifyPH

Verify before you amplify. Cut through the noise and shut down fake news with instant fact-checks delivered by VerifyPH for every Filipino.

Comment

Inspiration

In the Philippines, tsismis isn't just casual gossip over the neighborhood fence anymore—it has mutated into viral posts and permeates into group chats where baseless rumors are disguised as news, at its worst—facts. Everyday, Filipinos often share what they read on social media out of genuine concern, unwittingly letting coordinated disinformation spread like wildfire. However, such misinformation doesn't just spread; it actively distorts facts, discredits real journalism, and buries the truth under a mountain of lies.

We created VerifyPH around one core mandate: verify before you amplify. Our goal is to transform and empower Filipinos into active critical thinkers by making real-time fact-checking as fast and frictionless as hitting the share button.

What it does

VerifyPH is an accessible web platform designed to separate undeniable facts from viral and malicious gossip, and misleading claims across the Philippines. Users simply paste an article URL, or a trending piece of hearsay into the search bar. The platform analyzes the core assertions, cross-references credible news archives, government records, and verified truth databases, and then outputs a clear verdict with direct source citations and plain-language context that anyone can understand in seconds.

How we built it

We built the core web application using Next.js with the App Router and styled the user interface using Tailwind CSS for a fast and responsive experience. For our database layer, we integrated Supabase to store verified news articles and ground-truth references, while supporting secure authentication if needed. To keep our factual baseline current, we implemented automated news ingestion using RSS feeds and news APIs. The core verification pipeline is driven by Gemini and Backboard API, which handle claim understanding, evidence comparison, and clear summarization, with the entire platform continuously deployed on Vercel.

Challenges we ran into

A major bottleneck was navigating the strict rate limits and constraints of free-tier AI models, which constantly disrupted our testing cycles, demanded creative caching, and request-throttling solutions. We also spent an immense amount of time carefully prompt-engineering and calibrating the AI to critically analyze claims rather than jump to superficial conclusions, especially when dealing with nuanced Philippine contexts, Taglish code-switching, and satirical tsismis. On top of that, standardizing news ingestion across varied RSS feeds and APIs while minimizing pipeline latency on Vercel required continuous iteration.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We succeeded in fine-tuning our AI reasoning pipeline to deliver thorough, unbiased claim analyses despite working under strict API constraints. We are proud to have built a responsive news verifier app that turns an unverified link or trending piece of gossip into a clear, cited verdict card in just seconds – making reliable fact-checking approachable for everyday Filipinos.

What we learned

We learned how to effectively set up automated CRON jobs to schedule recurring RSS feed ingestion directly into Supabase, maintaining a clean and continuously updated ground-truth dataset. We also gained deep technical insight into giving AI models precise, step-by-step instructions so they cross-examine claims with rigorous logical constraints instead of hallucinating verdicts, alongside building responsive interfaces with the Next.js App Router and Tailwind CSS.

Verification Test Cases

To demonstrate how VerifyPH evaluates claims, the following test cases show three possible outcomes:

  • Exact (Verified): The claim is supported by the cited source.
  • Opposite (Contradicted): The claim directly conflicts with the source.
  • Unrelated (Insufficient Evidence): The source does not provide enough evidence to verify the claim.

Judges may enter these claims into the claim checker and compare the result with the expected classification:

Test Case 1: “Manila data center pipeline shrinks 13% as new projects lag” (BusinessWorld)

  • Exact (Verified): “According to Cushman & Wakefield, the number of upcoming data center projects in Manila dropped by 13% in the first half of 2026.”
  • Opposite (Contradicted): “Manila's upcoming data center projects actually jumped by 13% in the first half of 2026, beating out the rest of the Asia-Pacific region.”
  • Unrelated (Insufficient Evidence): “Manila data center and National museum.”

Test Case 2: “UP Diliman student council calls for academic leniency amid bad weather” (Inquirer.net)

  • Exact (Verified): “The student council at UP Diliman is asking professors to go easy on academic requirements right now because of the terrible weather.”
  • Opposite (Contradicted): “UP Diliman's student council is demanding stricter deadlines and tougher grading from professors despite the severe storms.”
  • Unrelated (Insufficient Evidence): “Bongbong Marcos is from UP.”

Test Case 3: “Sophia Laforteza says she's getting treatment as she sits out Katseye's tour” (Inquirer.net)

  • Exact (Verified): “Sophia Laforteza shared that she's stepping away from Katseye's tour for a bit to focus on getting medical treatment.”
  • Opposite (Contradicted): “Sophia Laforteza announced she's totally healthy and will be front and center for every single stop of Katseye's upcoming tour.”
  • Unrelated (Insufficient Evidence): “Cortis concert.”

What's next for VerifyPH

Moving forward, we plan to implement multimodal verification so users can directly upload viral screenshots, social media reels, TikTok clips, and gossip memes where tsismis spreads fastest. We also aim to expand our verified news ingestion pipeline across more local Philippine news sources and build messaging bots to verify claims right where discussions happen.

Our goal is to make verification just as unavoidable as fake news. By fine-tuning our claim checker to process complex narratives across more categories, we can ensure precision local news alerts, viral vlogs, or simply a family group chat chain post. But we won't just wait for users to come to us—we aim to integrate VerifyPH directly into the Philippine social media ecosystem via powerful browser and device extensions—delivering real-time, automated fact-checks right on your screen as you scroll.

And eventually, we want VerifyPH to go beyond the Philippines. We envision a future where every community, no matter where they are in the world, has a way to fight misinformation. We hope VerifyPH can inspire developers from different countries to build their own solutions for their communities—because fake news may cross borders, but so can the fight against it.

Built With

+ 21 more
Share this project:

Updates