President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. renewed his commitment to fighting fake news and appealed to the media for help in addressing what he described as a “one big problem.”
For the President, disinformation is an issue that must be confronted not only by the government but with the active participation of journalists.
“We have many, many ideas. But what we need, we need to work together on is the fake news,” he said.
Marcos lamented that journalists spend years understanding issues, researching backgrounds, and building networks of resource persons.
“You do this for what? — 10 years. You learn many things, right? And so, what you write, what you release, comes from that experience, comes from that knowledge, always comes from that wisdom that you have already acquired over that long period of time,” he said.
“But now, suddenly, your writings, your opinions are equal in importance and credibility to these crazy conspiracy theories that have no basis in fact. And that's why we really have to work on this very, very hard because it has taken too much of the space,” he added.
Marcos said the persistent spread of disinformation has consumed “too much of the space,” confusing and misleading the public.
“In the beginning, we thought it was funny, it was entertaining, but now it’s become damaging. And that is something that we have to be concerned [about],” he pointed out.
“And that's why we say we need your help. The government needs the help of all the media to try to explain to people that you have to be more discerning about what you read and what you believe than what you take on. And that is the challenge, I think, for us in the future,” he added.
Marcos acknowledged that combating disinformation is difficult, describing it as a race to let the truth be heard.
“It is important that people know what is happening. That the people are not led into this crazy mind game that people have been playing without any connection anymore to reality. That is what I think we all have to work on together,” he said.
“We hope that the cooperation that we have established, the partnership that we have established, the goodwill that we all have earned with each other, I hope that that can be maintained, that can be applied to this problem that we face. Thereby, giving us a much better, much more logical time of discussion. And that will only be good for our country and for the world,” Marcos told the media.