Presumptive justice

I wrote this column a year ago today. - Cong

“Dead men don’t tell tales.”

LAST week the Cagayan de Oro Press Club led the commemoration of the city’s 34th Press Freedom Week. This year, we bannered the theme: “Freedom of the press and the Duterte administration.”

On Friday, May 27, members of the club held a round-table-discussion entitled “Free pa ba kaha kita?” Club members discussed the safety and security prospects of mass media practitioners under President-elect Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.

One member asked: Why worry? In fact, the Mayor has recently announced that his administration would welcome scrutiny from the fourth estate. The catch, of course, is that whatever he would declare and announce would have to be “interpreted” by Davao media. My editor-in-chief dealt with this crazy proposition in his column on Monday. I won’t get into it because Herbie has already discussed it clearly, albeit through dark humor.

However, I cannot help but be wary and worry when our President-elect has a penchant for taking shortcuts with the justice system of the Republic–extrajudicial killings.

Many times in the past, Duterte has openly admitted that he has killed some of the dregs of Davao City. Many of those tales have even become local urban legends.

Until now, he has neither denied nor admitted the existence of the vigilante urban militia, the Davao Death Squad, which neutralized suspected criminals and notorious offenders supposedly at his bidding. In fact, this feat was among the many reasons that catapulted him to the highest post in the republic.

One could argue that Duterte’s death squad only kills drug users, traffickers, and suspects of committing heinous crimes (e.g. rape, highway robbery, kidnapping). Like what a friend told me that we need worry with the mayor’s propensity for summary killings if you haven’t done anything criminal.

To me this is a dangerous prospect. Without due process, to be tried by a jury of your peers, a case of mistaken identity is highly probable. Besides, extrajudicial killings can always be used as a go-to option for law enforcers too lazy to investigate. Worse, it could also be used as a convenient way to “tie loose ends” of corrupt or maverick law enforcers–and now, vindictive barangay chairpersons.

This storyline is not new to us. This jingoistic way of eliminating the dregs of society didn’t work before. It will not work again, this time. This also presupposes that we have crooked judges in the region.

How many criminal masterminds of big organized syndicates operating in the Philippines have been “salvaged?” How many drug users, runners, and mid-level “made-men” have been summarily executed?

How many suspected criminals who also served as police assets have been arbitrarily executed for “knowing too much?” How many have been felled by a vigilantes’ bullets, only to realize the fatality wasn’t the one they were hunting for?

Remember, death is final.

Our justice system is far from perfect especially since it has often been prejudicial to the impoverished majority of the republic. However, the roles of the judge, jury, and executioner have been specifically compartmentalized to serve as the justice system’s check and balance.

Our Constitution guarantees the right of suspects to face their accusers in a court of law. The republic’s five pillars of criminal justice exist so no citizen would be penalized arbitrarily. More importantly, it guarantees the erring citizen the right to remould and to rejoin the community. How could an erring citizen do this when they are as dead as the President-elect’s sense of due process or the lack of it?

Due process exists neither to delay nor deny justice but to ensure it.

Earlier this month, an alleged drug lord in Bocaue, Bulacan was snatched after a hearing of his case. The next day, the 44-year old suspect was found dead in a ditch with a hastily made cardboard sign that says: “Drug pusher ako. Huwag akong tularan.” I remember reacting: We will never know if the suspect was indeed guilty beyond reasonable doubt, now, would we?

Here in the city, our barangay chairpersons are busy drawing up a list–as instructed by His Excellence–of “drug personalities.” No one knows the criteria of the list. I read a post of a local plagiarizing columnist making light of this travesty.

There’s nothing funny about the list of “drug personalities” drawn by the barangay chairpersons. These are the new version of “order of battle” lists. It won’t be funny when they start executing these people without due process. Ask a person who has been included in an order of battle if it is funny.

Whenever a suspected criminal is killed, without the benefit of due process, the victim of the crime supposedly committed by the suspect can only assume justice was served–presumptive justice, that is. Pfft.

Hunting fake news (1)

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” – Dr. Seuss

AS promised, I will be sharing to you, my dear readers, tips on how to hunt for fake news. More importantly, what to do about it. Understandably, this will take more than one column. Here’s the first of two parts on fake news.

Ever since social media platforms became “weaponized” for political gain, fake news has been the buzz word all over the blogosphere. I cited an example about Philippine News Agency’s fake news article entitled “95 nations in 3rd UPR convinced no EJKs in PHL” in my last column. I also discussed PNA’s attempt to cover it up with another article–slightly reworded but equally deceiving “PHL’s human rights situation commended at UPR.” A government functionary said they were commended by the UN Human Rights Commission on its 27th Universal Period Review. They didn’t. The team was commended on particular points like what it has done to combat human trafficking but other than that the review pretty much grotesque. To say that UPR27 commended the country for its human rights situation is a lie meant to deceive the more gullible, Facebook “like” addicts and share-a-holics.

Then last week, another seeming example propped up.

While terrorists burned buildings and soldiers dropping bombs in Marawi City last week, Manila-based Philippine Daily Inquirer’s web platform posted five photos which supposedly depicted the aftermath of the siege of the city. However, these photos were actually outdated and some of the photos were not even taken or depicting Marawi City.

An enterprising troll made a meme on PDI’s editorial gaffe which naturally trended on social media platforms. I say “naturally” because the meme obviously meant to rile up netizens. A troll even actually suggested to burn down PDI’s offices in Makati.

On May 24, 6:11 pm, PDI’s web platform Inquirer.net posted an erratum on it. They claimed the photos they posted came from a reliable source but before they could complete their vetting process or did a simple reverse-image search, they posted all the five photos anyway.

“That was a mistake, and we apologize unreservedly,” PDI’s erratum reads. They then offered to impose “necessary sanctions” to ensure the same mistake will not happen again.

For me, the enterprising troll who pointed PDI’s mistake did nothing wrong although the motive behind the meme is suspicious at best. I think it is healthy to point out mistakes in news articles. News, after all, is communication and the process isn’t completed without feedback.

I have pointed out on my Facebook wall that that is how a professional news organization acts when confronted with their mistakes. However, I would be remiss if I don’t also point out the difference between misinformation and disinformation.

Disinformation and misinformation are two different animals. Misinformation is inadvertent (read: wala gituyo; hindi sinadya) while disinformation is deliberate (read: gituyo; sinadya). The former is unintentionally inaccurate while the latter is intentionally false.

As National Union of Journalists in the Philippines director and Interaksyon editor Nonoy Espina puts it: “Wrong news is a whole universe away from fake news.”

So how can we scrutinize a news post, whether this be a misinformation or a blatant disinformation, on social media platforms in particular and the Internet in general.

1. Check if the uniform resource locator (URL). URLs are the web addresses of the articles in the Internet. Many propagandists have intentionally made web addresses to sound like it is of a legitimate news media organizations. Examples of these include: ABCnews.com.co, Bloomberg.ma, cnn-trending.com, NBCNews.com.co, washingtonpost.com.co, etc.

Notice that most of the fake news web sites have a suffix “.co.”

2. Read beyond the headline of a news post. I, as I assume you do to, see these almost all the time on Facebook. People sharing “news articles” based on the headline but have not really read the entire article. Worse, they will caption the link with an inappropriate comment because as I said they haven’t really read the article.
3. While you’re reading a news article, check for exaggerations. Fake news are meant to rile up or elicit strong emotions to drive web traffic and further inflamed on social media platforms. Naturally, fake news would have exaggerations.
4. Check if the data presented on the “news article” is corroborated or supported by experts on the particular field or other news media web sites. Okay, that sounds more daunting of a task as I would have preferred. Maybe this acronym can help: GIN (Google It, Numbnuts).
5. This next tip will sound idiotic but believe me many have done this–sharing a news article without checking the date of publication. Digong Dada’s drummer boy Peter Lavina did it by posting a photo of a rape victim meant to rile up support for the war on drugs. However, the photo was from another continent, Brazil and from an entirely different timeline. So before you share, check out the date, huh?
6. Always cross-check the site with other reliable sources on the web. Real news articles may differ in angling, perspective, or even syntax but these will always have the same basic accounting of the story. Like if there are two reporters of different news organizations covering a story, they might approach the story differently but they will always be, essentially, the same story.

Now, why would anybody deliberately lie to you on the Internet, you ask.

The answer is simple. As I have written at the start of this column: Social media platforms have been weaponized to serve political interests. It’s no longer just a virtual hangout for your friends.

So be a responsible netizen.

Let me leave you with these words of wisdom from veteran reporter Ellen Tordesillas: “There’s no excuse for spreading lies even if you don’t like a person. If you have to spread lies to protect or promote your principal, that means there is something wrong not only with your principal but also with you.” (to be continued)

Uncreative non-fiction

“Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.” -Joseph Goebbels, Nazi party propagandist

I WOULD like to thank the Philippine News Agency for making this column a helluva lot easier to write by posting not one but two fake news articles. Now we have two articles to dissect which will be easier to separate truth from Goebbels-like propaganda.

I was thinking of sharing with you, my dear avid readers (Yes, all 250 of you), the things I learned at a seminar I attended last week. The seminar was about how to spot fake news. I prepared notes on the subject when PNA posted those fake news stories on their website.

This means that I might have to make this a two-part opinion piece. I will discuss and share tips on how to hunt for fake news on my second installment. But for now, let’s first tackle PNA’s latest foray into blatant disinformation.

Unfortunately for us, PNA took down the story and edited the fake news articles.

But good for us because many in the mainstream media (this paper included) screen grabbed the articles before PNA took down the article.

That’s good news for us because now, at least, we know PNA and the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) still feel “hiya.” Well, they should be, since their salaries are taxpayers’ money.

On May 15, PNA ran a story entitled: “95 nations in 3rd UPR convinced no EJKs in PHL.” The story, which ran for five days, claimed that 95 member-states who were present in the 27th Universal Period Review of the of the United Nations Human Rights Council believed in Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano’s report that there are no extrajudicial killings in the country.

Newly appointed Communications Assistant Secretary Mocha Uson wasted no time in posting the erroneous article on her blog on May 18. So the “crusading” blogger–who branded mainstream media “presstitutes”–now became an official “presstitute” of this administration by passing along an inaccurate article.

Vera Files checked its blog and found that as of May 20, at least 8,000 netizens had reacted and more than 900 gullible ones shared it.

The international council took notice of the erroneous article that it posted on its official Twitter account on May 19: “#UPR27 Clarification: To our best knowledge, 95 states were not convinced that EJK is non-existent.” The UN body then posted the full webcast of the UPR session.

The government news wires service took down the story on May 20 (may hiya rin pala) but not before posting a replacement story which is still inaccurate and also served to bolster Cayetano’s claim that the UPR was impressed with his report on the human rights situation in the country. The replacement story bears the odd title: “PHL’s human rights situation commended at UPR.”

So what did really happen at the 27th UPR? To answer this. I went to the international body’s website, www.upr-info.org. Here are samples of the real recommendations of the member-states:

• Further consolidate its national human rights infrastructure, including support to the Commission on Human Rights. (Egypt)
• Continue to improve its capacity to uphold human rights, including by increasing the Commission on Human Rights’ (CHR) fiscal autonomy and organizational capacity, as well as further efforts to prevent human rights violations by Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippines National Police personnel. (Australia)
• Continue to work as a matter of urgency to ensure that there are mechanisms to completely eliminate torture and extrajudicial killings, and to intensify its efforts to carry out investigations and prosecutions on extrajudicial killings and punish those responsible. (Trinidad and Tobago)
• Conduct independent and impartial inquiry in relation to all enforced disappearances and extrajudicial executions and that the perpetrators of these crimes be brought to justice. (France)
• Work towards the complete elimination of torture and extrajudicial killings, and intensify efforts to carry out the prosecution of such crimes. (The Holy See) For the newbies: The Holy See means The Vatican.
• Further capacity building, such as through human rights education targeting government authorities, particularly law enforcement agencies, and an effective implementation of a national oversight mechanism. (Japan)
• Continue the work to build up the capacity in the area of human rights protection, including through strengthening the national human rights institution. (Russian Federation)

That last one should be a doozy, considering that President Rodrigo Duterte is visiting Russia this week.

For good measure, I also audited the database on the UPR website. I found that extrajudicial killings were mentioned 18 times. Human rights violation was cited 81 times in the 191 recommendations and 74 of which are recommendations that seek “general action” in the categories of action that need to be done. A general action is No. 4 in the action categories of the council. The action categories are: 1 – Minimal action 2 – Continuing action 3 – Considering action 4 – General action 5 – Specific action.

So there. Good luck with your lies and disinformation, PNA and PCOO.