PCO Secretary Jay Ruiz (Facebook)

Presidential Communications Office (PCO) Secretary Jay Ruiz criticized Malaysia during the House tri-committee (tri-comm) hearing Friday, March 21, on the topic of fake news and disinformation.

Ruiz, a former journalist, made these remarks as he tried to illustrate how a "foreign actor" could utilize false information to manipulate Filipinos into "destroying each other".

He touched on the rather sensitive topic on the ownership of the island of Sabah, located on the southern end of the country. 

"They (Malaysians) divided us and conquered part of our territory, we lost Sabah. Imagine if Sabah is like as rich as Mindanao even probably richer than Mindanao the Petronas towers were built because of the minerals and properties of Sabah," Ruiz said.

"It’s happening again, but now, a foreign actor using fake news to destroy each other,” he claimed. 

Ruiz said he was alluding to the matter of communicating the West Philippine Sea (WPS) issue to common Filipinos.

"I said never again that the Philippines will lose any part of our country just like what happened in Sabah," reckoned the Palace communications head honcho.

“In the Sabah issue in the 1960s, if you look at it Sabah was owned by the Royal Sultanate of Sulu for a long time, Malaysia was paying rent to the Philippines. We tried to get it and claim it as our own,” Ruiz said.

“But what did the Malaysians do to us? They pitted Filipinos against Filipinos. They supported a Muslim secessionist movement in the south, using religion and race or against each other. Filipino-Christian, Filipino-Muslim fighting each other,” he claimed.

He said this eventually led to the Philippines' losing Sabah.

Fast-forward to 2025, Ruiz said Filipinos are once again "being divided", this time by the contenr they consume online.

"It’s Filipinos and Filipinos fighting each other. It’s not good for our country to see our countrymen being divided by hate speech, by pornography, that is very easily accessed by our generation,” said Ruiz as he lamented the situation. 

The tri-comm hearing was also attended by vloggers and social media personalities who had been accused of posting fake news online.