Mocha Uson ARNOLD ALMACEN/INQUIRER
If you don’t like it, don’t read it.
This was the advice of Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) Secretary Martin Andanar to social media users who disliked the Facebook posts of blogger and Assistant Communications Secretary Mocha Uson.
Uson’s page, named Mocha Uson Blog, has 5.3 million followers.
“If you are riled up by what she writes, then don’t read it. Shouldn’t that be the case? That’s how it is for me,” Andanar said in a radio interview.
‘Personal views’
He said the posts on Uson’s Facebook page were considered her own “personal views” and did not reflect the position of the PCOO.
“If you look at it, almost all government officials have a Facebook account. It just so happens that Mocha has 5 million followers … she’s famous. So every time she posts a comment on her Facebook account, it becomes viral,” Andanar said.
“But what she says in her blog, in her own account, that’s her own view. We’ve talked about that… that it does not reflect (the PCOO position),” he added.
Andanar said Uson’s statements were considered “official” only if she talked to the media and posted them on the website or social media account of the government.
“Whatever she says there, that’s official, which means it’s Assistant [Communications] Secretary Mocha Uson,” he said.
‘Not personality-based’
“So, it’s also time for our countrymen to look at the PCOO not based on personalities… Let us not make this personality-based… that this is based on Mocha or Asec, so and so. No, this is an institution we are now trying to strengthen,” he said.
Uson was grilled on Wednesday at the Senate inquiry into the proliferation of fake news.