Propaganda work
Days ago, news broke out about the filing by two lawyers of a plunder case against former president Benigno Aquino III, former Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) secretary Mar Roxas, former justice secretary and now senator Leila de Lima, former Senate president and still senator Franklin Drilon, former finance secretary Cesar Purisima and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor Amando Tetangco Jr.
Lawyers Fernando Perito and Rogelio Cantoria went to the Office of the Ombudsman accusing Aquino and the others of allegedly shipping in December 2014 gold valued at around $140 million from the Union Bank of Switzerland to the Bank of Thailand “without the approval, knowledge or acquiescence of the Filipino people as the registered owner and of the Philippine government through a congressional imprimatur.”
The complaint was obviously based on a fake news article titled “3,500 Metric Tons of Gold Deposited at Thailand Bank During the Administration of Aquino” that came out in the fake news website “Trending News Portal.” The article, to make its content sound convincing, mentioned Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) circulars on the transfer that turned out to be spurious. Expect the case to be dismissed sooner than later.
But that is not my point. The filing of the case came out amidst other questionable reports, like those that supposedly talked about plots to oust President Rodrigo Duterte. The Manila Bulletin reported about a supposed blueprint by former United States ambassador to the Philippines Philip Goldberg to undermine Duterte’s rule.
The US Embassy naturally denied the allegation and the existence of the blueprint and because the report didn’t have much to stand on, nothing much came out from it. Some leaders of the Duterte-controlled House of Representatives talked about conducting an investigation on the matter but nothing also came out of it. Which means that whoever was behind the yarn merely wanted to get propaganda mileage from it.
The latest is a social media-fueled claim of another plot to oust Duterte by a group identified with Vice President Leni Robredo. Note that Robredo has become a favorite target of vociferous Duterte supporters after she resigned from the Cabinet. The plot was supposedly “exposed” by a pro-Duterte blogger Thinking Pinoy. The blogger leaked a few e-mails that are now hashtagged “lenileaks,” even if these weren’t from Robredo.
The emails were an exchange by members of the Global Filipino Diaspora Council (GFDC) that include billionaire Loida Nicolas-Lewis. But even Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre said that the emails, because these merely sought to ask the President to resign, are not illegal. Some proDuterte lawmakers, as expected, made some noise about it but I doubt if that would fly. The intention is merely to taint Robredo’s image.
We all know that during the campaign for the May presidential polls, a well-financed group worked behind the scenes using social media and other mediums to influence the result of the elections. Is the same group orchestrating this obvious propaganda assault?