Update: Julian Martir has broken his silence on the issue. Tap or click here to read.
If the media can get played this hard by just one person, how much lower can our collective IQ as a society go?
Last week, numerous media outlets had reported that a certain Julian Martir had been accepted into 30 prestigious universities abroad with scholarships amounting to P106 million. From this sentence alone, you could already see the amount of Facebook reactions and shares it would garner, or in other words, the public will eat it all up.
And they did–some media had not verified the facts or the veracity of the claims the “son of tricycle driver and a vendor mother” has been making (we were told Julian Martir actively emailed and messaged media networks and pages via social media).
On May 19th, however, the whole narrative changed after Filipinos saw the online interview held by a Philippine broadcast station, where Julian Martir fumbled a little too much when asked why he picked the course he had chosen.
Later on, it had begun to appear that Julian Martir’s claims of receiving international scholarships is highly implausible, as none of these institutions have confirmed his claims.
The topic eventually became a fodder for social media chismisan, soon as Filipinos caught wind of the situation, with some questioning if the Filipinos’ critical thinking level is that low to suspend better judgment of this news, and why the Philippine media did not double the effort to fact-check a large, incredible claim that, when you think about it, checks all the hallmarks of a carefully concocted sap story. Others also commented on how embarrassing it was to see so many Filipinos become victims of a story by capitalizing on their sympathy.
The timing of this story could not have been better, most especially when it had been recently reported by the World Population Review that the average Filipinos’ IQ is…below average, with the Philippines ranking in the lower half of Southeast Asian region, with Malaysia, Brunei, Laos, and Indonesia.
TBH, we’re not quite sure what Julian Martir’s goals are to come this far into trolling majority of Philippine media and the public.
POP! is currently trying to get in touch with him to get his side of the story. Julian, if you’re reading this, we are open to being proven incorrect and will gladly welcome any information you provide.
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