The Commission on Elections (Comelec) has referred seven fake news incidents to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) that “undermined” the credibility of the May 9 national and local polls.
Comelec Commissioner George Garcia, head of the poll body’s Task Force Kontra Fake News, said Tuesday the NBI has subpoenaed one of those involved and is currently investigating the matter.
This developed as the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo, who lost the elections to President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., is not yet done with its assessment on 2022 polls, spokesperson and lawyer Ibarra Gutierrez said Tuesday.
Gutierrez commented two days after Robredo returned to the country after attending the graduation of her youngest daughter Jillian from New York University and spending two weeks with her daughters in the United States.
“Machinery still counts a lot in the Philippine elections. We haven’t really finished the assessment of the totality of what happened,” Gutierrez told ANC in an interview.
“This is a post-social media election…it’s [apparent] that social media now determines the outcome,” he added.
But Garcia said Task Force Kontra Fake News was formed to counter any attempt to undermine the credibility of the electoral process.
“We have referred to about seven that we have seen that undermined the credibility of our election. There are also, if you notice, those abroad who released information that the name of a candidate was not included on the ballot. Here in the country, the NBI has already issued a subpoena, we have referred it to the NBI,” he said in an interview with Super Radyo dzBB.
The candidate in question was Robredo, but the Comelec refuted the allegation, saying the photo of an overseas ballot that did not contain the name of the Vice President was “deliberately edited.”
The poll body said the Office for Overseas Voting was coordinating closely with the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Philippine Embassy in New Zealand to identify the persons responsible for editing the photo, and for spreading the photo on social media.
Garcia also said the NBI is currently investigating one of the persons claiming the poll body will change the number of votes of the winning candidates.
“The NBI is ready, they are actually interrogating those involved for the investigation. The one involved said that the election was done but the Comelec might change this number of votes for each candidate from president to senators,” he said.
“The NBI has already interrogated the person involved, and the NBI told us anytime that we will need the investigation report, we will only make a complaint, we will file a case right here in the city hall of Manila at the prosecutor’s office,” the poll commissioner added.
Garcia stressed that fake news must not prevail in the next elections, noting that people behind spreading false information must be held accountable.
“Seven out of 10 of our fellow Filipinos, based on the survey, believed in social media, that is where they get their information. If fake news prevailed, maybe our fellow Filipinos have lost confidence in the credibility and integrity of elections in our country,” he said.
“In the next elections, fake news must not prevail, we need to prove that we can punish the people involved in this matter,” the Comelec official added.
Garcia also expressed his approval for passing a law that would regulate social media, targeted to combat the proliferation of internet trolls, during election season.
Gutierrez acknowledged that Robredo’s fight against Marcos was a Herculean one, made even tougher by the massive disinformation online.
“People did not have a constant source of information so they went to YouTube and TikTok,” Gutierrez added.
