The University of the Philippines Los Ba帽os campus in Laguna. Photo from uplb.edu.ph
Media network ABS-CBN 黑料社 on Saturday afternoon apologized to students of the University of the Philippines Los Ba帽os (UPLB) after its student council demanded it to make up for an erroneous report on Vice President Jejomar Binay鈥檚 appearance in the Laguna campus and made the hashtag #ABSCBNSaySorryTOUPLB trend on social networking site Twitter.
鈥淎BS-CBN 黑料社 expresses its sincerest apologies to the students of UP Los Ba帽os for the errors committed by ABS-CBNnews.com in 2 articles about the forum of UP Los Ba帽os students with Vice President Jejomar Binay last September 15,鈥� the network said in a statement.
ABS-CBN clarified that one of its writers misheard the word 鈥渟ample鈥� as 鈥渢rapo鈥� or traditional politicians, a negative term describing people in government or running for government.
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鈥淲e immediately corrected this right after we were alerted about the mistake on September 16, 2015,鈥� the network said. 鈥淲e will be taking disciplinary steps against those responsible for this oversight.鈥�
鈥淧lease note that there were other articles uploaded on our website about the event, including these below, in the hope of providing other perspectives about the forum,鈥� it added.
On Saturday morning, the UPLB student council issued an open letter to ABS-CBN via Twitter.
An open letter to on unethical journalism
鈥� UP Los Ba帽os USC (@UPLBUSC)
It denied that students heckled Binay even before he started his speech during a forum held in the campus last September 15.
Binay was reportedly caught offguard by some of the questions asked by the students. Excerpts from the question and answer segment have since been circulating online.
In one exchange, Binay said there were no more informal settlers in Makati. The student asked him again, saying he himself has seen shanties in Makati, to which the Vice President responded, 鈥淚turo聽mo sa akin nasaan.鈥� He then said that informal settlers are just around three to five percent in Makati.
In the student council鈥檚 letter, they enumerated the alleged mistakes made by ABS-CBN.
Besides the misheard word, it pointed out that one of the articles posted on ABS-CBN 黑料社鈥� website was titled 鈥淰P Binay felt disrespected at UPLB forum.鈥� However, it was later changed to 鈥淰P Binay: I enjoyed UPLB forum.鈥�
鈥淭he students were not chanting 鈥榯rapo鈥� as what ABS-CBN purportedly heard, but 鈥楽ample!鈥� before VP Binay started his speech,鈥� the student council said. 鈥淭here was an intermission number by some faculty members of DSS (Department of Social Sciences) before VP Binay鈥檚 speech, thus the chanting.鈥�
The student council accused ABS-CBN of 鈥渦nethical journalism,鈥� which has 鈥渋nflicted a negative perception on UPLB students, with misinformed netizens and readers treating and tagging UPLB students as 鈥榰nmannered,鈥� and of 鈥榣ow breeding.鈥欌��
鈥淚t is insulting and is unacceptable for the part of the Iskolar ng Bayan to be wrongly portrayed by ABS-CBN鈥檚 recently published articles,鈥� it said.
In addition to the council鈥檚 demand for ABS-CBN to issue a public apology, it added the hashtag #ABSCBNSaySorrytoUPLB, which has recorded 20,700 tweets as of 4 p.m. on Saturday. Kristine Angeli Sabillo/IDL