Spreading fake news is a sin — Santos

People who spread fake news are sinners, a Catholic prelate said yesterday.

Balanga Bataan Bishop Ruperto Santos explained that spreading fake news violated the Eighth Commandment – “Don’t give false testimony against your neighbor.”

“Fake news is falsehood. It is to misinform and to spread lies. False news is sinfulness,” the prelate said in a statement.

Santos, chair of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines Episcopal Commission on Migrants and Itinerant People, said he often reminds overseas Filipino workers about the importance of not spreading false information.

“We are always reminding our OFWs that to follow the 8th commandment is to practice 3Ts – magsabi ng totoo (tell the truth), gumawa ng tama (do what is right), and maging tapat (be honest),” he pointed out.

“We are always advising them to also avoid false promises, reject fake documents or substituted contracts, and not to shortcut or slip from work,” he added.

Last week, the CBCP released a pastoral exhortation against fake news where CBCP president and Lingayen-Dagupan Archbishop Socrates Villegas asked the faithful to help stop the spread of fake news especially on social media.

“Our Catholic faith obliges us to refrain from patronizing, popularizing and supporting identified sources of ‘alternative facts’ or ‘fake news,’” read the letter.

“Refuse to be themselves purveyors of fake news and to desist from disseminating this whether on social media or by word of mouth or through any other form of public expression,” it stressed.

The CBCP said fake news is “a sin against charity” because it hinders persons from making right and sound decisions and induces them to make faulty ones.

It stressed that crucial decisions – personal and social – depend on the accurate grasp of facts.

“Alternative facts and fake news engender faulty decisions many times with disastrous long-term consequences to persons and to communities,” said Villegas.

Some of the bishops themselves have been victimized by fake news and offensive memes in social networking sites especially during the time President Duterte was slamming the Church for its stance against killings in his drug war.