Solons welcome SWS survey on ‘fake news’

By Ben Rosario

Lawmakers on Wednesday challenged government to take swift action in addressing the proliferation of fake news and the dangers of spreading misleading, if not totally false, information to the public.

Rep. Carlos Isagani Zarate
(Bayan Muna Party list Facebook page / MANILA BULLETIN)

Opposition Reps. Teddy Baguilat (LP, Ifugao); Carlos Isagani Zarate (Bayan Muna) and Tom Villarin (Akbayan Partylist) welcomed the Social Weather Station survey indicating that 67 percent of adult Filipinos are aware of the dangers of fake news.

With more Filipinos becoming informed and wary about the ill-effects of fake news, government must now do its part in addressing the issue.

Baguilat noted that it is only recently that fake news has proliferated in the media, especially in cyberspace social media.

“It’s symptomatic of an increasingly fractured society where expressions of opinion are branded as either DDS or dilawan,” he said.

Zarate stressed that the SWS survey result is “critically important”.

“This is a good development and we hope that this would also encourage more people to be more critical and analytic of what’s happening around them, especially now that so-called fake news being churned out by dubious, even fake websites and sources, are clearly being weaponized to deliberately mislead our people ,” said the progressive solon.

He added: “We also trust that this survey result can also push the House leadership to finally approve the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill, which is still languishing in Congress.”

Villarin said growing public awareness about the adverse effects of fake news should be considered as a “wakeup call for all institutions involved in forming and disseminating information.”

“Something must be done by way of policy and discourse for the truth,” he said.

A staunch critic of the Duterte government said something must be done “by way of policy and discourse for the truth.

“The Goebbels mantra of repeating lies often enough can be passed on as truths is still highly relevant and used extensively by government or people with ulterior motives other than the truth. Our people must fight back and reclaim public space for truth nothing less,” stated Villarin.