At around 6PM today - December 10, 2020, I started noticing that many of the messages that I was sending to my friends on Facebook via Messenger were not going through.
Initially, I thought that it's just a problem with my connection so I restarted my router.
When that failed to fixed the issue, I tried logging out of my Messenger account and logging in again. That's a common fix. However, the problem persisted -- and I also began to see that "Waiting for Network" notification on top of every chat box.
At around 830PM, some messages from my friends - including one from Mindanao, as shown in the image above - slowly started trickling. And that's when I finally realized that my issue is not isolated.
Apparently, Facebook Messenger is indeed having some problems and is even down not just in some areas around the Philippines but also in other parts of the world, specifically in India, Thailand, Pakistan, and UK -- as confirmed by these tweets on Twitter.
As of 8:50PM, Facebook has yet to issue an official statement on this issue being faced by users across the globe and as such, we don't know yet what exactly caused it and how soon they can fix the problem.
As of October 2020, the Philippines ranks #2 in the world when it comes to number of Facebook users at a whopping 81 Million, trailing on Mexico with 92 Million users.