Vice President Leni Robredo has been condemning the killings in the country. However, recent articles surfaced about a CNN report on her support for the investigation of the cases of extrajudicial killings in the country that was branded with a totally different headline.
Facebook fan pages “Duterte News Global,” “Kilusang Bagong Lipunan,” and “Duterte Warriors” shared an article from dutertemedia.com with a title “Robredo Wants Investigate President Duterte on Killing Drug Lord and Criminals.”
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But upon clicking on the article, we were taken to a page, where we found a screenshot of Robredo and a YouTube video of a CNN report, entitled “Robredo Supports Probe on Extrajudicial Killing,” about her encouraging an investigation into the ongoing extrajudicial killings in the Philippines and recalling how President Rodrigo Duterte himself said in his inauguration speech that the rule of law will still be observed. Robredo also said that she believed that Duterte does not condone all these cases of vigilante-style killings.
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The report also showed Robredo talking about the Congress’ interest then to conduct a probe on the killings, which she believed to be within their mandate, adding that it is also within the executive branch’s mandate to let the Department of Justice, Philippine National Police or the Department of Interior and Local Government to look into these cases.
“Kasi pag hinayaan natin yung mga tao na to take the law into their hands, baka maraming mga inosente na madamay,” Robredo said.
Anchor person Pia Hontiveros said that Robredo, then a Cabinet member, said that they were not able to discuss the extrajudicial killings during their Cabinet meetings because they were focused on the drug war, although she was planning on discussing the issue in the next meeting.
A quick search on when that particular CNN Philippines report was aired showed us that it was first reported on July 14, 2016, based on this relevant news article.
Further search on Facebook about relevant posts also showed us that the article with the misleading title was also shared last year. It was shared by “Showbiz Government” on September 28, 2016, by “Marcos Warriors” on August 21, 2016, and by “Duterte Saviours of Filipinos Today” on July 18, 2016.
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Robredo did join the call to have the killings investigated to prevent the loss of innocent lives, but she did not say that she wanted President Duterte probed for the killings. In fact, as the video showed, she noted how Duterte said that the rule of law would be followed and how he would not condone the killings.
It was only in December last year that Robredo expressed her concern over Duterte’s admission that he killed criminals himself and he used to roam Davao City at night to look for criminals. She said that it might “send the wrong message, not only to law enforcers but civilians as well.”
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“He should remember that he is the commander in chief of the Armed Forces and the big boss of the police. If our President tells stories that he went around and killed people, it’s fearsome. It’s as if we are encouraging the culture of impunity,” Robredo said.
She added that the message might seem like enforcers and ordinary citizens were given a “license to kill,” especially considering the rising death toll.
After this statement from Robredo, Duterte responded: “You can ask even one [of the government forces] if I ordered them to kill a person whose body was in a kneeling position and hands were tied at the back. Ask one of them. If someone says Duterte [ordered that], I will resign. I will resign tomorrow.”
Memebuster.net has busted several articles lately about blogs using misleading titles to attract readers, only for them to find out that the title is completely irrelevant to the actual content of the articles, which are often video clips. Only if you watch and understand the video clip will you then discover that you’ve been misled. So as a reader, it is your responsibility to read, listen or watch the content from start to finish to fully understand it and to find out if you have not been misinformed.
Sources: (cnnphilippines.com, sunstar.com)
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