Citizen Calls Out Media’s Penchant for President’s Rant

Screengrab from former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay’s Twitter account.

DURING A speech in Iloilo on June 20, President Rodrigo Duterte lambasted detained Senator Leila De Lima for criticizing his controversial kiss with a Filipina overseas worker in South Korea earlier this month. Duterte did not name the senator, but he alluded to her in such a way as to identify her: a “lady nakakulong” who was “kulang sa common sense”, “desperate” and “judgmental.”

Confirming this identification further, Duterte insisted it was the senator first who was “bastos.” To prove his point, he threatened to show the alleged “x-rated” video, which became the subject of the 2016 House inquiry on the proliferation of illegal drugs in the New Bilibid Prison. However, the video was never validated and verified, but simply presumed by the president’s supporters in Congress.

Media covering the event Iloilo tweeted the president’s statement as is, and without challenge; thus repeating questionable charges and unproven allegations against a detained public figure.

CMFR cheers former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, who in his personal Twitter account on June 21, criticized the media’s failure to call out false claims by Duterte. His observation stemmed from tweets by CNN Philippines, GMA News, DZRH News, Inquirer.net, and The Philippine Star which quoted Duterte’s instigations without question.

“Malicious imputations, if left uncorrected, can destroy a person,” Hilbay said. He also called on the media “to avoid being used as instruments for disseminating falsehoods.”

CMFR found four online news accounts (DZRH News, GMA News Online, Inquirer.net and The Manila Times) and one TV news report (Aksyon) which picked up Duterte’s statement on June 20. Unfortunately, these were repeated by the media with no effort to point out the truth or lack of truth of the president’s statements. The media could have ignored the president’s rant, if they were unwilling to reflect Duterte’s long-standing anger toward De Lima that this stemmed from her effort as commissioner of human rights to investigate the Davao Death Squad (DDS) during his term as mayor.  None recalled what was widely observed that the video did not show clearly that it was De Lima and that many in social media protested the showing of the video as a shameful demonstration of a most vicious partisan attack against an elected senator.

Hilbay was correct to criticize the media for this failure. Journalists must avoid picking up Duterte’s sensational statements unless they are willing substantiate his claims. Repeating it in their reports reduce their news as instruments with which politicians spread political propaganda based on lies and false information.