Pushing the lie even after it is exposed

IT'S bad enough for a politician to peddle wrong information or a lie. It's monumentally worse if he keeps pushing it even if that is already exposed as false or untrue. Consider two examples:

• The BOPK-dominated Cebu City Council has frozen the mayor's supplemental budget #1 for several weeks now, claiming that a complaint in court by a citizen has tied its hands and they might be ordered to refund money spent from the proceeds of SRP lots sale. Despite being exposed as part of a political blitz against Team Rama, with its supposedly legal support knocked down by the court itself, the argument is latched on to by BOPK leaders.

• Rodrigo Duterte called Mar Roxas's bachelor in economics degree from Wharton School a myth, saying it was most likely a shortened course, later revising that to say Mar was a Pennsylvania U. grad, not of Wharton. Despite school and alumni records showing that Roxas did finish a bachelor's degree at Wharton, Duterte stuck with his charge.

What do you call those who stick leech-like to a falsehood even when, stripped of its coating, it has become a naked lie? And more disturbing, what do you do with people, more in social media than anywhere else, who reject the untruth despite the ton of evidence against it?

Flood of light

A citizen cannot hold a legislature hostage and derail a government by mere court complaint. Not only did the court refuse a TRO against Cebu City, it threw out the case. And dominant BOPK councilors keep justifying their "filibuster" with that farce.

Since Duterte hurled the "mythical-degree" rap and was shown documents that proved him wrong, he has blithely repeated his accusation.

But more woeful is this: many of us, especially netizens, continue to believe the falsehood despite the flood of light showing droplets of the lie dribbling from the politicians' lips.