Presidential candidate Bongbong Marcos intends to get rid of biased or one-sided "fact-checkers" if and when he becomes president.
Marcos, during his pre-taped interview Monday, March 21 at "Kandidatalks: Negosyo, Trabaho at Kalusugan" by Go Negosyo, was asked how he intends to deal with fake news. He immediately brought up the matter of so-called fact-checkers.
"Mayroon naman tayong tinatawag na fact-checker, pero yung mga fact-checker naman minsan ay may sariling agenda. Kaya't finafact-check lang nila eh yung one side of the story. Yung kabila hindi nila ginagawa. Tanggalin natin yung mga ganun (We have what we call fact-checkers, but sometimes fact-checkers have have own agenda. They only fact-check one side of the story. But not the other side. Let's get rid of those)," he said.
Asked which fact-checkers he was referring to, Marcos sidestepped the question and said, "Eh kami biktima kami dyan eh (We've been victimized by those)."
"Maraming finafact-check ako na sinasabi, hindi totoo yung sinasabi ko. Wala naman akong sinabing ganun, pero fake news daw yung sinabi ko. Wala akong sinabing ganun. Gumagawa lang sila (A lot have fact-checked me and said that what I was saying wasn't true. I didn't say anything like that, but they insisted I was saying fake news. I didn't say anything like that. They just made it up)," the former senator said.
Marcos further said: "Iniimbento nila yung sinabi ko, tapos sasabihin fake. So gawin natin yung fact-checker na walang agenda; no political agenda, no financial agenda, whatever. Talagang fact-checker lang (They fabricate things that I say and then brand them as fake. So let's make fact-checkers that have no agenda; no political agenda, no financial agenda, whatever. They only exist to fact-check)."
Asked to react on allegations that his camp has benefitted the most from the spread of fake news as far as his popularity is concerned, the UniTeam member disagreed.
"I don't see......I don't see how that is. Para sa akin, ako ang nabibiktima ng fake news dahil ang dami-daming sinasabi sa akin, hindi naman talaga totoo (For me, I'm the one victimized by fake news because they're saying a lot of things about me that aren't true)," the Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) standard-bearer said.