Photo by Carlo Manalansan/Bulatlat
Karapatan denounces this yet another unhinged but dangerous threat by Undersecretary Lorraine Partosa Badoy, spokesperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), on the task force’s planned legal action against Rappler for the exercise of its role in fact-checking.
Photo by Carlo Manalansan/Bulatlat
Karapatan denounces this yet another unhinged but dangerous threat by Undersecretary Lorraine Partosa Badoy, spokesperson of the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ELCAC), on the task force’s planned legal action against Rappler for the exercise of its role in fact-checking.
Such threats are based on outright lies, repeatedly affirmed by judicial authorities, which are being perpetuated by Badoy and her similarly unhinged cohorts in the NTF-ELCAC. It should be further noted that not a single case has been successfully prosecuted and concluded in court in relation to the NTF-ELCAC’s allegations against several human rights defenders and their organizations or partylist groups.
Badoy’s outlandish accusation that Rappler spreads “disinformation” that has supposedly “brought and continues to bring great harm” for fact-checking her lies against the authors of the proposed Human Rights Defenders Protection Act is by itself another deranged and unfounded statement.
Rappler’s credibility as a media organization and as a fact-checking institution is certainly the direct opposite of her and the NTF-ELCAC’s widely-known notoriety for spreading lies that have incited and directed violence and great harm against human rights defenders, journalists, and their communities.
This notoriety is once again manifested through Badoy’s recent statement. It is nonetheless clear that Badoy and her cabal of red-taggers in the NTF-ELCAC are rabidly against fact-checkers and a proposed law to protect human rights defenders for two reasons: they are liars and human rights violators.
We call on the public to uphold press freedom and the people’s right to information by supporting Rappler and other fact-checkers in the exercise of their crucial roles, especially in the 2022 national elections. All freedom-loving Filipinos should condemn this abominable stunt of abominable Badoy. Such acts further validate the need for the dangerous and despicable NTF-ELCAC to be abolished.
Cristina Palabay
Karapatan Secretary General