The House of Representatives has formed a tri-committee to investigate troll farms and disinformation peddlers allegedly maligning and spreading malicious false content against the quad committee probing the Duterte administration’s drug war and the criminal activities tied to the Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO).

In an interview on Sunday, Surigao del Norte Rep. Ace Barbers, the lead chair of the quad comm, said that the tri com was established as early as December, or before Congress went on a holiday break, to create a regulatory framework that will help combat false information that became more rampant when they started investigating the supposed extrajudicial killings and the illegal POGOs.

“There needs to be a regulatory framework so that these vloggers stop abusing [their free speech. [These] vloggers have done nothing but to defame [members of the quad committee], he stated in Filipino.

Members of the quad comm filed a resolution last month to look into the proliferation of “false and malicious content” against them. 

Barbers and quad comm co-chair Dan Fernandez of Sta. Rosa Laguna have suspected that these troll farms are being orchestrated and financed by a POGO boss to verbally attack, discredit, and undermine the panel’s continuous probe into the illegal industry.

Fernandez previously claimed that the funds were coming from the proceeds of POGO firms, allegedly owned by Duterte’s former economic adviser, Michael Yang, whose name continues to surface in both the House and Senate investigations. 

Yang has been linked to various criminal activities, including illegal drug trafficking and POGOs. He is also reportedly one of the incorporators of Empire 999 Realty Corporation, a real estate firm that owned the warehouse in Mexico, Pampanga, where P3.5 billion worth of shabu was seized in September last year.

The trolls, lawmakers said, not only attack panel members but also intimidate and discourage witnesses who exposed the links between illegal drugs and corruption.

According to Barbers, they have been subjected to cyberbullying since the start of the investigation in August last year. The lawmaker himself claimed that he had been falsely tagged as a high-value drug lord and that his relatives were involved in the narcotics operations.

Barbers acknowledged that criticisms are part of their duty, but asserted that freedom of speech is not an absolute right.

“No less than the Supreme Court decision says that there is a limitation: as long as a statement does not have malicious intent, it is not libelous. But when they go overboard and indicate malice, then we will have a responsibility to the law. Vloggers should be enlightened on that,” he argued.

The panel, from the word itself, will be comprised of the three committees. This concept, Barbers said, will save the government from resources, and time.

Earlier, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) warned that they would hesitate to file criminal cases against vloggers inciting sedition or causing too much defamation without basis. The NBI said public officials who are being cursed and subjected to defamation are welcome to file a cyber libel complaint against these vloggers.