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MANILA, Philippines — The proliferation of fake news is a “serious matter” that the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS) intends to address, its officer-in-charge (OIC) said Wednesday.
“Ito po ay isang seryosong bagay na tututukan ng OPS (This is a serious matter that the OPS will focus on),” OPS Undersecretary and OIC Cheloy Garafil said in a press briefing. following a recent Pulse Asia survey showing that the majority or 86 percent of adult Filipinos agree that fake news is a problem in the country.
“Kaya ngayon meron kaming mga programa na ili-laydown in the coming days… ,” she added. “Gusto rin talaga natin na ma-address itong mga problema ng fake news.”
(That’s why we have programs that we will lay down in the coming days… We really want to address the problem of fake news.)
In a poll conducted September 17-21, Pulse Asia said 9 out of 10 Filipinos consider the proliferation of fake news as a problem in the country as only 14 percent thought otherwise.
“Social media influencers, bloggers, and/or vloggers are seen by most Filipino adults (58%) as peddlers of fake news about government and politics. For a small majority of adults (58%), social media influencers, bloggers, and/or vloggers are responsible for spreading fake political news in the country – an opinion shared by most Metro Manilans (69%), those in the rest of Luzon (67%), and those belonging to Class ABC and D (69% and 58%, respectively),” the survey results released Tuesday also showed.
Back in February, preliminary findings of Tsek.ph, an academe-based fact-checking initiative, showed that then presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is the beneficiary of positive but misleading messaging on social media. The findings were released ahead of the May presidential elections.
READ: Robredo is biggest disinformation victim; Marcos gains from ‘misleading’ posts — fact-checker
Marcos, however, denied this and even claimed that he was the victim of fake news and disinformation.