Castro: No聽鈥榓ttack dog,鈥� just fighting fake news
Undersecretary Claire Castro —Photo from PCO
MANILA, Philippines — Just two days old as Malacanang press officer, Undersecretary Claire Castro already showed how different she would be, compared to the previous communicators of the Marcos administration.
The 55-year-old lawyer on Tuesday pushed back against critics who had branded her as the government’s newest “attack dog.”
Castro, a former TV personality and vlogger, posted a 34-minute video on her YouTube channel on Tuesday in response to two unnamed online detractors who gave her that label.
She maintained the feisty tone she showed when interviewed by reporters for the first time as a ranking officer of the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) shortly after oathtaking on Monday.
“Just because I was [in] the defense [of] the President and the government, citing evidence, I was criticized. The President doesn’t even answer criticism before… When I answered, I was called an ‘attack dog’,” she said in the video.
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Castro on Monday defended President Marcos from the latest accusation from her predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, that he was veering towards dictatorship and had no plans of stepping down from power in 2028.
Article continues after this advertisementShe then reminded the public that Duterte once “admitted that when he was still a fiscal, he was an expert at sowing intrigue and planting evidence.”
“I think this was proven already during the time of Sen. Leila de Lima,” Castro said, referring to [the] opposition leader who was charged with drug trafficking during the Duterte years and spent almost seven years in jail before being cleared in all three cases.
“So what do we expect from the former president? Sowing intrigues, planting evidence.”
Such bluntness was unheard of in interviews or briefings given during the time of past PCO officers. Former PCO chiefs Cheloy Velicaria-Garafil and Cesar Chavez, for example, were mainly known for working quietly off-camera.
In her YouTube program “Batas with Atty. Claire Castro,” the lawyer maintained that she was only responding to criticism directed at Marcos and the government and that she was not the one “instigating the attacks.”
Not necessarily official
But she also clarified later that her statements conveyed her own views and should not be taken as the official stand of Malacanang.
“If you respond to attacks and you have evidence, you’re just trying to parry it—are [you] an ‘attack dog’ already?” she said, adding, “They also want a say into how the criticisms and attacks against the President should be handled. They say I should be cool, sober, and only explain what the Palace or the government is doing. What about attacks using fake news? How do you respond to that?”
“So if I respond the way I did to what was said in the Cebu rally (by Duterte), which was fake news and lacks evidence, we were just looking for the evidence. Is that already the work of an attack dog?”
In her first full Palace briefing also on Tuesday, Castro showed no sign that her approach would change.
Castro said she would continue to rebut fake news and “intrigues that make sense,” while ignoring those that make no sense at all.
