Deceptive and Sensational

CMFR File Photo

JEERS TO the Philippine Daily Inquirer for using “mass murder advocate” to describe Davao City Mayor and President-elect Rodrigo Duterte in one of its reports.

On May 9, the lead in Inquirer’s banner story “Duterte man to beat” read “The race for Malacañang ends in national balloting today with mass murder advocate Rodrigo Duterte the man four other candidates need to beat to become the next president of the Philippines.”

The use of the term “mass murder” tends to recall such atrocities as ethnic cleansing, the Holocaust and other systematic killing of a group of people at once or in short intervals. To apply it to Rodrigo Duterte is sensational as it is deceptive of the context of the human rights violations that have been raised against him.

As it was Agence France Presse that used it initially, the Inquirer could have refrained from repeating its use. The Inquirer report did not provide the necessary context. in reporting that Duterte had boasted of killing criminals as mayor of Davao and promised to kill criminals if elected president. While the report did mention that the mayor is accused “of running death squads in Davao that have killed more than 1,000 suspected criminals” the term “mass murder advocate” to describe him is still inappropriate.