Everyone on Facebook might be aware of the page Nabangga Na Ba?—whose admins snoop across groups and profiles to highlight mangled vehicles spotted across the Philippines. The main goal is to inform the public—mainly buyers from any marketplace—whether a specific unit has undergone repairs, or has dirty, rusty secrets, or has lived its life drama-free.

However, the entertainment factor occurs when an expensive ride takes center stage, and its owner begs to remove the post, fearing backlash, punishment, or lower resale value. The comment section would either empathize or laugh at the owners’ misery, which says a lot about how our society deals with excess and extreme lifestyle.

On the evening of March 12, a new post emerged from that page accusing a group of amateur racers of entering a race using a random rental car and scuffing its bodywork. On the surface, it sounds like what they did was a heinous crime against the terms and conditions. However, there’s more to the story than meets the eyes of the public court of opinion.

On March 8, the K-Cars 2-Hour Endurance race was held at Clark International Speedway with a grid of small-displacement compact vehicles. One of the entrants was a white stock Nissan Almera driven by Heinz Herald Reyes, Matthew Ang, and Luis Moreno.

Despite all three drivers starting in sim racing (the latter two were finalists in the 2023 Toyota GR GT Cup Philippines), the team finished in P2 overall but not without some scars. Four days later, images of the trio celebrating emerged, implying misuse of a rental from a company in Naga City, Camarines Sur.

The evidence presented was a screenshot from the rental page showing that the conduction sticker vaguely matched the raced Almera. Followers rushed in to share and comment to the best of their comedic abilities, while some found holes in the claim.

For starters, the Naga-based rental company quickly denied its ownership of the unit by sharing a photo of the only white Almera in its stock. The owner even went live to prove that the numbers didn’t match. The promotional image turned out to have originated from a Nissan dealership agent, so it was merely posted for illustrative purposes.

The page admin followed up on this revelation with two more posts, waiting for anyone to shed further light on the situation. Meanwhile, a sim racing content creator took to his platform in the most negative light imaginable. He brought up an unrelated personal vendetta toward the boys and vilified them as serial rental thrashers who would drive it like they stole it.

Hours later, another rental company owner verified that the vehicle indeed belonged to his fleet and granted Reyes, Ang, and Moreno permission to participate in the endurance race. Gabriel Gaza of EG Rentals wanted to experiment with track-use services with the renters agreeing to shoulder the repair cost, which they did.

The page later removed the “wrong rental company” and its images from its original post, and shared two single-word messages, “Sorry” and “Apologies.” However, the damage was already done. Also, the content creator edited his retractions but maintained his sour, biased demeanor toward the racers.

We are not against Nabangga Na Ba? as a whole as its fundamental idea—paired with crass Filipino humor—frequently tickles the funny bone. On the other hand, the lack of sufficient proof and tripling down on your mistake lead your uninformed crowd into a frenzy of misinformation.

Sure, we could be overacting here, and this issue might disappear on the pages of online history. But the main concern is that the three sim racers who had permission to race a rental vehicle were wrongly condemned as irresponsible hooligans while being used as ammunition for their haters.

It doesn’t hurt to dig deeper and verify details instead of creating casual content for the heck of it.