MANILA, Philippines – The Movement Against Disinformation (MAD) on Tuesday, February 8, condemned a statement released by Presidential Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Marie T. Badoy on Facebook, which said the government’s anti-communist task force intends to take legal action against Rappler for its alleged “spread of disinformation that has brought and continues to bring great harm.”

Badoy also said the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC) would take legal action against Meta Platforms’ Facebook for “allowing their fact-checkers, Rappler and Vera Files, to abuse the immense powers of this designation.”

Badoy’s “manner and means of communication,” according to MAD, “were unmistakably for the purpose of publicly intimidating, harassing, vilifying, and discrediting Rappler and Vera Files.”

Calling Badoy’s statement “an affront to the freedom of expression and the people’s right to know,” MAD said, “We should never allow this public official to abuse the powers of her office in the guise of protecting the interests of the citizens. This kind of behavior shatters public trust in fact-checkers and creates an enabling environment for their persecution and prosecution.”

MAD is a group of lawyers, members of the academe, civil society groups, local and international non-government organizations, and other advocacy groups calling for “a more robust approach” to moderating election-related disinformation. Its members are the Philippine Bar Association, Alternative Law Groups, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Karapatan, iDefend Philippines, among others.

Various newsrooms and organizations have joined global fact-checking networks in the face of massive disinformation on social media. They have engaged platforms such as Facebook and YouTube to hold them to account for the harmful lies that they allow to spread.

Fact-checkers such as Rappler and Vera Files represent the “valiant attempt to make voters better informed by pointing out the lies, fake news, and other forms of disinformation that could cloud their judgment on election day,” MAD said.

Rappler and Vera Files are the only verified signatories of the International Fact-Checking Network at Poynter in the US, which unifies over a hundred fact-checking groups worldwide. They are also the core of the country’s major fact-checking alliances for the 2022 elections – FactsFirstPH and Tsek.PH.

Badoy has repeatedly red-tagged Rappler over its articles that fact-checked her own false claims. Last year, she tagged Rappler as a “friendly ally” of the communists after Rappler debunked her posts about the Lumad. Rappler advised Badoy to “stick to facts” and end her “relentless habit of baseless red-tagging.” – Rappler.com