PPCRV urges public to fact-check campaign posts on social media
MANILA, Philippines — An official from the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV) urged netizens on Sunday to fact-check the information about candidates posted on social media.
This was the call of Maribel Buenaobra, Executive Director of PPCRV as she said that the rise of social media became the “game changer” during the 2016 election.
According to her, politicians often use the social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to campaign to the public.
However, Buenaobra said that not all information that could be seen in the internet is accurate.
“Ang challenge ngayon ay hindi alam ng mga Fa-Facebook at YouTube kung yung information ba ay tama, accurate, o fake,” Buenaobra said during the Balitaan sa Maynila news forum.
“Yan ang challenge ngayon specially sa mga millennials: they need to verify first before they forward the information to their colleagues,” she added.
Article continues after this advertisementAside from this, Buenaobra also said that that vote-buying among politicians were also rampant during election season.
Article continues after this advertisementShe said that during a voter’s education program that they conducted, one revealed that vote buying could spike up to P20,000 per person.
“Prior to elections and during elections, namimili sila ng boto. Nagkaroon kami ng voter’s education last week at sinabi nung isang kaparian, pagka-ano binibigay nung isang kandidato bente-mil,” Buenaobra said.
“So ibig sabihin, malaki na ang kanilang nagastos talaga. So yan ang challenge talaga,” she added.
Election-related violence also remains a challenge among election agencies.
Commission on Elections Spokesperson James Jimenez earlier said that the poll body fears to have a ‘more bloody’ elections this May 13 due to the number of violence happened in the past months.
“It looks like that the election-related violence exceeded previous years. We are just starting the campaign and it looks like a long road ahead. It might be more bloody, so definitely, something has to be done,” Jimenez said in a different news forum.
Even before the official start of the campaign period for national candidates, several candidates for local positions, including Ako Bicol party-list Representative Rodel Batocabe and Crisell “Beng” Beltran were gunned down.
Batocabe was a candidate for Daraga, Albay mayor, while Beltran was a Quezon City congressional candidate. /je
