Two senators, Senators Grace Poe and Sonny Angara, nominated the late Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago for the highest recognition in the country, the Quezon Service Cross, to honor her “legacy of dedicated, outstanding and selfless” service to the country and its people. President Rodrigo Duterte nominated Santiago for the award.
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But some blogs online claimed that Senators Risa Hontiveros and Leila de Lima allegedly refused to sign the Senate resolution concurring the conferment of the Quezon Service Cross to Santiago.
The story was carried by localhero.altervista.org, which we later found to be copying its content from Okd2.com. The article “Hontiveros, de Lima refuses to vote for Mirriam’s Quezon Cross” actually intended by the latter to be “satire,” although the tag was not carried over to the former’s blog, making the story more misleading.
It was shared on Facebook by Okd2 and the fan page “President Rodrigo Duterte.”
Every senator, except for de Lima and Hontiveros, allegedly signed to concur the conferment of the Quezon Service Cross to the late senator.
De Lima was said to have made this remark: “I think it’s too early to give the highest award for the late Senator.”
Look, the quoted statement is only carried by Okd2.
Hontiveros, on the other hand, reasoned that the Senate committee did not give her enough time to come up with a decision.
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Even Senator Bam Aquino was also said to have called his “grandfather,” the late Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., the most deserving among the five recipients of the Quezon Service Cross. But Senator Bam is Ninoy’s nephew, not grandson.
According to reports about the Senate’s approval of Concurrent Resolution No. 8 regarding the conferment of the Quezon Service Cross to Santiago on December 11, 16 senators, including its endorser, Poe, signed the resolution. This contradicts Okd2’s claim that everyone at the Senate except Hontiveros and de Lima approved the resolution.
But many netizens believed in the false claim and have started lambasting Hontiveros, de Lima, and Aquino over the issue.
With the rampant spread of fake news, everyone has to be careful about believing in the things that we read, see or listen to online. It only takes usually a few minutes to verify a story.
Sources: ( senate.gov.ph , newsinfo.inquirer.net , rappler.com )
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