Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of Philippine public figures who underwent COVID-19 testing


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. Clear consensus to keep and “reframe”, i.e., do some major restructuring, possibly change the scope, and possibly rename. Those issues should be worked out at the talk page. If it turns out that agreement cannot be reached in a month or so, or that other articles are written which cover the subject better, no prejudice against renomination. MelanieN (talk) 22:17, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

List of Philippine public figures who underwent COVID-19 testing

 * – ( View AfD View log  Stats )

It's inappropriate to have a listing of people who have taken a specific medical test, along with their test results. It violates BLP. Liz Read! Talk! 00:40, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 00:51, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Philippines-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 00:51, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists of people-related deletion discussions.  CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 00:52, 25 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. The number of covid-19 tests conducted is likely to be extravagant and it is simply not encyclopedic to list every single one. Public officials who died, perhaps more fitting for Wikipedia. Ajf773 (talk) 00:54, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That exists at List of deaths from the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Liz Read! Talk! 01:22, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I disagree that the list is indiscriminate. The article does not aim to list everybody who had been tested but rather public people especially government officials. —seav (talk) 10:38, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There will be hundreds of thousands of people tested countrywide, many will not test positive for the virus. A high number of them will be notable BLP's. This is incredibly indiscriminate. Ajf773 (talk) 19:02, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:INDISCRIMINATE says "data should be put in context with explanations referenced to independent sources". We have already placed context (which may need to be reframed) with explanations that are referenced by independent sources in the lede. As such, I believe this list no longer falls under WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Also, you have the List of named minor planets (numerical). What makes this extravagant and not the list of named minor planets which keeps growing? Let us worry about maintaining this list. It serves as an important resource for fighting disinformation in the Philippines as per explanation below. -Object404 (talk) 03:45, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. I am still trying to work out how being tested for a virus is encyclopedic (let alone even borderline interesting and useful) and how listening every single case using a news report is not indiscriminate. This article is just a collection of news reports, and could possibly fails WP:NOTNEWS as well. Some of the officials do not have articles either. Ajf773 (talk) 01:21, 27 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete for the reasons stated by the nominator. Mccapra (talk) 03:57, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Summarize the controversy (VIP testing) into prose and merge back as subsection of --Bluemask (talk) 04:15, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The target article is getting long and the controversy is widely discussed within the Philippines. Changing vote to Rewrite to emphasize about controversy instead. --Bluemask (talk) 04:49, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep 1) How does this violate BLP? These are public figures who have publicly disclosed that they took the test (or in the case of the deceased, their next of kin did). 2) It is not indiscriminate in that it is restricted to public figures. It is not going to grow to a ridiculous size. 3) Also, please understand the local context of the creation of the list. The list serves a very important resource right now for fighting disinformation in the Philippines. There is an ongoing massive controversy in the Philippines over public figures who skipped ahead in the lines for COVID testing because of their privilege, and there are many unverified lists of VIPs who undertook the COVID test going around social media and private messengers, spread by outraged Filipinos. These unverified lists going around are extremely unfair to the people in them if the entry listing is unverified. This Wikipedia list serves as a vetted, verified list so that Filipinos will know what's real and what's not, so they don't unfairly vent their ire on innocent people. I hope you all understand the importance of this list. Thank you. -Object404 (talk) 04:40, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 *  Strongly Concur Keep and Reframe (Vote statement has been refined but is essentially the same) Agree with the assertion that people identified are public officials, and that the controversy is notable as per media coverage and WP:PUBLICFIGURE (as stated by another user below). Not sure this is the right format for this article, but strongly vote keep, with the possibility of renaming to 2020 Philippine COVID-19 VIP testing controversy. - Alternativity (talk) 04:48, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete and merge: As per . Media coverage is not a rationale alone for maintaining this list, which is better left alone to the media agencies and social media sites. Better merge useful and meaningful contents back to 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the Philippines as per . JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 05:34, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Changed my mind: After finding out that this is the only "near-"comprehensive list of allegedly selected-group of people tested for determining whether he/she has COVID-19 or not, and given that I always find news sources (in which I can access through socmed pages of agencies like GMA News, ABS-CBN, etc, I change my vote to keep, but the article as I last visited is not well-organized (for my perspective) and needs fixing. JWilz12345 (Talk|Contrib's.) 07:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, agree that the article needs fixing. Need help with that. It's a very young article, so other editors should help fix it over time. Meanwhile, you are correct, as far as I know, it is the ONLY centralized, updated, vetted and verified list of these certain class of people which can fight the current rumors and misinformation going around right now in the Philippines on the topic. Mainstream media will not be able to replace this article's function because A) They have space constraints B) They might not have the resources to dedicate people to this topic are not as agile as Wikipedia editors in keeping things updated. -Object404 (talk) 08:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete per nom. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 06:30, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep I'm at a loss as to how this article violates WP:BLP, given that all the people mentioned in the list can be traced back to reputable, reliable sources in Philippine media, and given that these are high-profile figured who, by dint of their status, are generally notable enough to be mentioned on Wikipedia anyway. I should stress, however, that there is an important public service function that deletion proponents don't seem to get nor understand: there is a lack of reliable information on the pandemic in the Philippines, and Wikipedia is one place where I think this information ought to be stored for people to rely on when the time comes. If need be, we can add on to the list and turn it into an article all its own, but deletion doesn't solve the intrinsic set of circumstances that went into the article's creation to begin with, and to which Wikipedia is arguably uniquely positioned to provide given its role as a fairly reliable source for readers in the Philippines. --Sky Harbor (talk) 06:45, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Another important thing to note is that the people on the list (or their next of kin) self-disclosed their testing status to media, so it is not a violation of their privacy either. -Object404 (talk) 08:28, 25 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep WP:PUBLICFIGURE applies. Though context needs to be provided to all entries to avoid unnecessary negative association to people on the list, especially those who legitimately meets the national testing criteria, given the ongoing controversy.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 09:08, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep and reframe. It might be better to reframe this article as a public governance controversy instead of just as a list of public officials tested. Numerous news articles are discussing the issue: —seav (talk) 10:36, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Note: The article has now been mentioned in a South China Morning Post news article: Coronavirus: in Philippines, leak shows politicians and relatives received ‘VIP’ testing (, emphasis mine). —seav (talk) 10:40, 25 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment Let me just list similar articles and category that involve the status of whether a person has or has not COVID-19 which have already been deleted:
 * List of people with coronavirus disease 2019 - Deleted, now undergoing a contentious deletion review
 * List of association football players diagnosed with COVID-19
 * Vietnamese heiresses with coronavirus
 * Category:People with coronavirus disease 2019
 * Category:People with COVID-19
 * It is because of these deletion discussions which have already occurred that I nominated this article for deletion. The consensus has been that it is inappropriate to document whether individuals test positive, much less negative, for a disease. We don't have similar articles for other diseases or medical conditions. It's not a matter of sourcing or whether this knowledge is interesting, the consensus has been that these articles are not appropriate for Wikipedia. Liz Read! Talk! 03:03, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not just a matter of whether or not the article is interesting, but rather this list serves as an important public resource/public service for fighting a current misinformation/disiformation problem in the Philippines. We're ground zero in the current era of internet disinformation in the world, as illustrated by the insane amount of fake news websites being generated in/for the Philippines. We're also the top social media and internet users in the world (most time spent online and on social media in the world), and the misinformation on the unvetted versions of this list has been spreading like wildfire in our social media and private messenger channels. This list needs to exist for us because it's fighting a real world problem that may not exist in your countries, but it does for ours. I'm sorry, but you guys are robbing our country of a much needed resource in this time of crisis and misinformation if you delete this list. It doesn't matter that those were the decisions made on those other articles, my country might have a unique problem that may require a unique solution, and Wikipedia is currently the best platform to address it. -Object404 (talk) 03:35, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , just to confirm, the sources used in the list are trustworthy and reliable? Tenryuu 🐲  ( 💬 • 📝)  16:58, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes they are. News media/journalistic sources. -Object404 (talk) 23:48, 26 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep and Redirect As per and . The lead must be rewritten too. As per, This is not a WP:BLP violation and WP:PUBLICFIGURE applies.—Allenjambalaya (talk) 04:22, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Changed my mind: I'm slowly getting convinced that it is WP:indiscriminate and better to just Delete, WP:NUKEIT, and start again. I created a draft on the alleged VIP testing controversy topic sans the list.—Allenjambalaya (talk) 03:56, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Hariboneagle927 (talk) 04:54, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment: Unlike similar deleted lists, which are plain trivial and the "Vietnamese heiresses with coronavirus". Several mainstream sources are keeping such lists because of the public issue of politicians bypassing testing protocols. I suggest the following actions to this article:
 * 1. Further limit the scope the article to politicians. Afaik public figures who aren't politicians or relatives of such people had no to little controversy. Except for a single actor which had alleged VIP treatment which I suspect came from listings like this.
 * 2. As part of a possible reframing, rename the article to "COVID-19 testing of Filipino politicians"
 * 3. Rename to "COVID-19 testing controversy in the Philippines" to include other testing controversies (e.g. mass testing debates, criticism of the testing criteria, etc.) and scrap all entries except those politicians who have contentious/controversial testing circumstances according to RS.
 * 4. Summarize this article as mention in a dedicated subsection in the main article with mention on notable certain cases (such as certain politicians admitting to bypassing protocols, etc.)
 * The suggestion to restrict the list to politicians (and their families) might pose some problems. How/where do we categorize Bongbong and Imelda Marcos who are no longer a public officials, but are still politicians? How about Ramon Tulfo, who AFAIK has never been a public official, but is heavily involved with politics? -Object404 (talk) 07:01, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Point taken, "COVID VIP testing controversy" may be another possible title? Since the local media tends to characterize tests allegedly bypassed protocols as done by "VIPs".Hariboneagle927 (talk) 09:21, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I have an issue of the use of the term VIP for the title of the article, mainly because all of the people in the list will be branded as VIP's when not all of them acted like entitled VIPs and were legitimate test candidates. Also, just because one is a politician does not automatically make one a VIP, and not all politicians act like VIPs. Hence, I think the term "public figure" is more appropriate. -Object404 (talk) 15:13, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The List of people with coronavirus disease 2019 deletion review has now been upheld. It will remain deleted. Ajf773 (talk) 01:35, 27 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Keep and Reframe: Per WP:PUBLICFIGURE. The lead should be renamed, though. ASTIG😎  (ICE T • ICE CUBE) 05:26, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep It is not a BLP Issue, since we have public figures disclosing information about themselves. The article has reliable sources. It is not a model list, but need for improvements is not a reason for deletion. Dimadick (talk) 08:33, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep. The scope is narrow enough to not be INDISCRIMINATE and the subjects are PUBLICFIGUREs. If public figures are self-disclosing I don't see how this would be an issue. -- Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝)  17:00, 26 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Keep and Reframe  per reasons above. Movies Time (talk) 07:50, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Delete At one point, ALL public officials in the PH will be tested, and maybe even hundreds of thousands of other known personalities as the pandemic drags on. I agree that the list is WP:indiscriminate, what i think is more useful is a list of known personalities who not only underwent testing but actually tested positive or died due to covid19. (But this could be indiscriminate too) As for the VIP testing controversy, that's the one that should have an article, with a qualified or limited list of those officials who actually circumvented the testing protocol, and not all public officials who got tested per se. No point in keeping this article to redirect to the VIP testing controversy article.--RioHondo (talk) 10:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment I now agree with your last statement of moving creating a new VIP testing controversy article. Following that up, the list must now be as it is, narrowed down, and new public officials or personalities who followed the proper triage and tested positive or negative must not be added. There is now a background section written thanks to .—Allenjambalaya (talk) 11:20, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't suggest moving this list article to the controversy article as it will leave behind a trace or a redirect from this indiscriminate article. My suggestion is to WP:NUKEIT in favor of the controversy article. If the term VIP is unacceptable to some, i suggest going for a neutral article title, say 2020 Philippine coronavirus testing controversy, which covers both the lack of testing kits in PH and the VIP priority list, both very controversial topics as of the moment, i believe.--RioHondo (talk) 11:58, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. Changed my mind; created a new draft.—Allenjambalaya (talk) 03:56, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think Draft:2020 Philippine coronavirus testing controversy is a valid subject of a Wikipedia article. It isn't just a list of people and their test results, it's about a controversy in Philippine society. Liz Read! Talk! 04:45, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Now that is what I call an encyclopedic article. That's probably what this article's creator had in mind and not the names of officials and their test results (like seriously?). I say we ditch this article and focus on that one as this is even worse than the List of people with coronavirus disease 2019 that got deleted. Transfer those VIPs to the controversy article please. Thanks.--RioHondo (talk) 06:31, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Comment/Question - Both articles sorely need copyediting. Do we continue expanding the article here despite the AfD? And when the AfD results come in as "delete," can we be sure that the edits done on this page will be passed on to the draft article before it goes live? - Alternativity (talk) 08:10, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No idea. But as the List of people with coronavirus disease 2019 was already deleted, i suggest saving a copy of your edits because this is not very different from that list. The PH coronavirus article/navbox already links to this but under the title "coronavirus testing controversy", just need to redirect it once the draft moves into main space.--RioHondo (talk) 15:14, 2 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Delete. Per WP:IINFO. Even if we assume there aren't BLP problems with this list, I fail to see the utility to the reader. We are not a repository of epidemiological data at the level of individuals. A person tested negative today can be tested positive tomorrow. To the extent the tests of these public figures impact Filipino politics, it should be mentioned in their articles, or in the articles about the pandemic in the Philippines.  Sandstein   20:31, 4 April 2020 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.