I don’t celebrate Halloween. I’d rather read the Bible than honor ghosts and spirits. But something spooky happened to me last weekend that would give the Candyman a run for his sweets.

In the wee hours of Friday (October 25), our VISOR Facebook page began acting up. We last posted when we were leaving World Trade Center in Pasay City after a long day (Thursday, October 24) of covering the Philippine International Motor Show. I noticed that I could no longer do anything with our page. I could still see it, but it wasn’t responsive to my prompts anymore.

I ignored this, thinking it was just another glitch that I occasionally encountered on Facebook. When I woke up Friday morning, of course I fully expected to see this when I got my phone:

Instead, I saw this:

This discovery was scary because I hadn’t experienced seeing our Facebook page disappear like that. Obviously, something was wrong.

Needless to say, our readers started taking notice. Our humble community, I’d like to believe, is extremely active and immersed.

Before long, my personal Facebook account followed suit.

I fiddled around my electronic domain some more and saw more weird stuff. As you can see, my Facebook account is severely compromised.

The following day, Saturday (October 26), my personal Facebook profile reappeared. This gave me an opportunity to tell friends and readers what had caused our Facebook page to vanish.

Indeed, all sorts of online characters immediately engaged with my post. Some of them were peddling their expertise in recovering hacked Facebook pages.

I sent Meta several requests for a review of the matter.

Last Monday (October 28), a Philippine-based Meta marketing pro accommodated my petition to discuss the case. She was very cooperative. She told me:

I’m so sorry to hear that your page has been hacked and deactivated. I can imagine how frustrating and concerning this must be for you, especially if your business relies on your online presence. I’m here to help you regain control of your page and get back to running your ads as soon as possible. Let’s work together to resolve this issue and get your page back up and running.

However, in the end, she had to escalate the issue to their tech/security guys.

What happened here might have been completely avoidable had we taken advantage of the Meta Verified service.

Will we get our Facebook page back? I can only quote this verse from Romans 8:28: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God.” May His will be done.

In the meantime, while our Facebook page is still currently down, you may continue to enjoy our content on this website, on YouTube, on Instagram, and on TikTok.

Thank you for bearing with us.