Trillanes wants to make gov’t execs liable for spread of false info

Senator Antonio Trillanes. EDWIN BACASMAS/INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV wants public officials, who use their positions to spread false information, to be held responsible.

On Tuesday, Trillanes filed Senate Resolution No. 315, directing the Senate committee on public information and mass media and other appropriate committees to investigate the massive proliferation of fake, erroneous, distorted, fabricated or misleading news or false information by some government officials.

The inquiry, he said, was aimed at “ensuring that the public will not be deceived and that government officials will not abuse the platform accorded to them in order to spread propaganda and/or lies.”

“Due to the advent of modern technology, false, misleading, erroneous and/or fabricated news are easily proliferated and the public is susceptible to being misinformed and/or deliberately misled by unscrupulous and/or enterprising individuals,” the resolution said.

“Public officials should be more careful and should be held directly responsible for their public pronouncements in order to avoid the proliferation of false, fake, fabricated and/or unsubstantiated claims and/or misleading assertions and to prevent the proliferation of fake or false news and/or deliberate misinformation,” it added.

The senator particularly cited as example in the resolution the allegation of Communications Secretary Martin Andanar that some members of the Senate media were offered a $1,000 bribe to attend the press conference of retired SPO3 Arturo Lascañas last February 20.

READ: Senate media blast Andanar for ‘irresponsible’ bribery claim

It was Trillanes, who facilitated the press conference where Lascañas accused then Davao City Mayor and now President Rodrigo Duterte of allegedly ordering the so-called Davao Death Squad to kill criminals and enemies.

The Senate media immediately issued a statement denying the allegation and demanded an apology from Andanar.

“This claim is unfounded, unverified and was clearly used to malign and discredit the undersigned and the members of the Senate Press Corps, and ultimately, to deliberately divert the issue from the President’s alleged involvement in the Davao Death Squad,” the resolution said.

Trillanes also noted Andanar’s claim that Lascañas’ press conference was part of an alleged destablization plot against the Duterte administration.

Aside from Andanar, the senator said Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II has also been spreading “unsubstantiated claims and unfounded assertions.”

Trillanes cited Aguirre’s allegation that he was part of the September 2016 stabbing incident at the New Bilibid Prison that resulted in the death of one high profile inmate, and injuring three others.

“Secretary Aguirre himself already publicly admitted that his allegation was not backed by sufficient evidence,” it said.

Aguirre had also accused Trillanes and Senators Leila de Lima and Francis Pangilinan as part of an alleged attempt to offer legislative immunity to former immigration commissioners to pin down the Justice secretary in the P50-million bribery scandal. He later apologized to the three senators.

READ: Aguirre apologizes to De Lima, Pangilinan for plot charge

And only last February 24, the Justice secretary accused former Senator Jamby Madrigal and Biñan, Laguna Representative Marlyn Alonte-Naguiat of allegedly trying to offer P100 million to certain inmates, who had testified against De Lima over her alleged involvement in illegal drugs.

But Madrigal and Alonte-Naguiat also denied the allegation. RAM