Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II on Monday rejected the administrative case filed against him before the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly spreading “fake news.”
“That [allegation] is false. I have never been a fake news king,” Aguirre said, when sought for comment on the complaint against him for alleged violation of Republic Act 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees filed last week by Akbayan Youth, Millennials Against Dictators, and other youth groups.
Aguirre said that he did not spread “fake news” when he revealed in a press conference last June 7 the supposed intelligence information about the involvement of some opposition lawmakers in the attacks of local terror group Maute in Marawi City last May 23.
“First of all, that’s not fake news. It is a raw intelligence report and I made that clear to the media. I said this is mere intelligence report that I have to validate and that I don’t want to make speculations,” he said.
Instead, the Justice secretary again pinned the blame to the media for wrong reporting on his statements.
“You are the ones who are not telling the whole truth about that press con. You did not report my precaution that this is only an intelligence reports,” he said.
Aguirre earlier drew criticisms for implicating opposition lawmakers Antonio Trillanes IV, Bam Aquino, Gary Alejano and former political adviser Ronald Llamas in the Maute attack supposedly as part of a grand destabilization plot against the Duterte administration.
In the said press conference, he even showed to reporters an alleged photo of the meeting between the senators and some Muslim clans in Marawi weeks before the attacks, but it turned out that the photo was taken in September 2015.
The National Union of Journalists in the Philippines and the Justice and Court Reporters Association earlier belied Aguirre’s claim that he was misquoted in reports from the said press briefing as he claimed.
The media groups said Aguirre’s statements were caught on record and reported by the media verbatim.
In their complaint, the youth groups asked the Ombudsman to hold Aguirre accountable for violating Section 4 of the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees for his repeated unsubstantiated public accusations and allegations thus failing to discharge his duties with “excellence, professionalism, intelligence, and skill.”
The groups also alleged that Aguirre violated Section 1 of the Article XI of the 1987 Constitution when he refused to take responsibility for his actions as DOJ chief despite his false accusations.