Enrile: Free expression based on truthful information
Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile —Malacañang photo
MANILA, Philippines — Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile on Sunday reminded social media practitioners not to consider their platform as a license to disseminate “made up or invented information,” as this will lead to an “anarchic and disorderly” information system and society.
Enrile issued the remarks following the recent House of Representatives hearing on misinformation and disinformation over social media.
“I would like to believe that the social media practitioners are intelligent and rational enough to exercise utmost care and caution to disseminate to the public only well confirmed information so as not to mislead the unknowing people with fictitious or invented facts,” Enrile said in a Facebook post.
READ: Vloggers apologize in House under intense grilling in ‘fake news’ probe
The President’s chief lawyer said the right to guaranteed freedom of free expression in the Bill of Rights is “underpinned with truthful information” so that unknowing people are made aware of events or happenings in the community.
“[This is] so that our people can make the right decisions on matters that affect them, instead of being manipulated to serve the interest of others,” he said.
A group of social media personalities and vloggers summoned by the House tri-committee finally appeared on Friday for the panel’s third hearing, in which they were put on the spot over their controversial online posts.
‘Sensationalized, baseless’
The hearing on the spread of “fake news” and disinformation saw lawmakers particularly grilling three attendees—newspaper editor Krizette Laureta Chu and bloggers MJ Quiambao Reyes and Mark Lopez—and forcing them to apologize for making “sensationalized, baseless” claims.
Most of the summoned “resource persons” have gained a huge following because of social media posts in support of former President Rodrigo Duterte, now a detainee of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Duterte was arrested in Manila and handed over to the ICC last week on charges of crimes against humanity in relation to the brutal drug war he waged as president and earlier as Davao City mayor.
