By Argyll Cyrus Geducos
Malacañang hopes that the public will cut the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) some slack as it assured that the agency has learned from its mistakes.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque made the statement after the PCOO was criticized for two erroneous posts it made on social media last week.
Presidential Spokesperson Atty. Harry Roque
(YANCY LIM/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO / MANILA BULLETIN)
On Thursday evening, the PCOO has referred to Norway as "Norwegia," while it referred the late National Security Adviser Roilo Golez as "Rogelio Golez" the following day
Roque, in his press briefing, said that he knows that this was not the first time the PCOO had some blunders in its own field of communications.
"Let he who has not erred cast the first stone. This may not be the first but come on, let's give them slack," he said Monday.
Roque said he understands why the public has been hard in criticizing the PCOO as he knows that it should be the very agency to effectively communicate to the public.
"Pero mahirap po talaga, I guess, kung ikaw ay propesyunal na manunulat, mas mataas talaga ang standards, at naintindihan naman natin ang frustration ng taumbayan (It's really difficult because when you're the professional writer, people would have high standards so we understand the frustration of the people)," he said.
"Pero I'm sure po that they will learn again from this experience in the same way that they have learned from the experiences from the past," he added.
Meanwhile, Roque suggested that the PCOO improves its spellchecking capabilities to avoid future errors.
"Sana lang mas pataasin pa ang kanilang spellcheck dahil meron namang Word program na spellchecker (I hope they can increase their ability to spellcheck because there is a spellchecker program in Word)," he said.
Netizens have expressed displeasure for the mistakes that the PCOO has committed in the past two years.
They noted that with a 2018 budget worth P1.38 billion, the PCOO should first verify its information before publishing.
Prior to their two erroneous posts last week, the PCOO was criticized for the grammatical errors found in the backside of the IDs issued to the media covering President Duterte.
The agency's transcribers also fell for a Duterte impersonator interviewed in a radio show and referred to him as the real Philippine president.