Aguirre’s fake news
HOW can the Duterte administra tion solve a problem like Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre? That’s a good question to ask after Aguirre once again put his foot into his mouth with his recent pronouncement on the Marawi City crisis. He is fast making himself the Cabinet’s Mocha Uson, who is accused as a spreader of fake new s.
Actually, Aguirre is not the only “enforcer” in President Rodrigo Duterte’s team. There’s Solicitor General Jose Calida, who helped pork barrel scam mastermind Janet LimNapoles extricate herself from her kidnapping case. There’s House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, who led in efforts to demonize Sen. Leila de Lima. But Aguirre is different in that he seems to not know when to move and when put the brakes.
Aguirre recently held a press conference accusing Sens. Antonio Trillanes IV and Bam Aquino, Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano and the former political adviser of the Aquino administration Ronald Llamas of holding a meeting in Marawi City with some Muslim leaders on May 2 or a couple of weeks before the Maute group besieged that city. The insinuation was that they probably masterminded the Marawi siege.
It turned out that no such meeting happened and that Trillanes and Alejano (Llamas has still to respond to Aguirre’s allegation) were nowhere near Marawi City and even Mindanao on that date. As for Aquino, he visited Marawi City but for an activity sponsored by the Department of Trade and Industry and had military escorts throughout the visit. Muslim leaders have come out to defend him.
What was worse was that Aguirre seemed to have tried to come up with his best Mocha Uson impersonation. He titillated reporters by partially showing to them a photo of the meeting, which turned out to have been taken in 2015 yet. To be fair, Aguirre did not fully show the photo, which was in his cell phone, to reporters, saying he would make it public later. The photo turned out to be fake.
Remember Mocha, currently with the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), who posted in her blog a statement praising our soldiers fighting in Marawi City and placed there an accompanying photo that turned out to be that of soldiers in Honduras? Mocha responded to the flak she received saying that the photo she posted was mere “symbolism.” Would Aguirre eventually use the “symbolism” word?
This is not the first time that
Aguirre has put the public for a ride. His recent act of pinning the blame on de Lima in the Resorts World Manila attack was a dud. He claimed de Lima, when she was justice secretary, issued a memo barring the Bureau of Fire Protection from inspecting casinos like Resorts World. It turned out Aguirre’s claim was a misreading and misapplication of the de Lima memo.
With his recent acts, one wonders how many of Aguirre’s previous allegations against de Lima and the opposition were made up or were fake news. He is not only being exposed for being untruthful, he is also shown to lack scruples when it comes to going after critics of the Duterte administration. He is the boy who has cried wolf too often already, dragging down the image of the Duterte administration.