The Senate Committee on Public Information and Mass Media is in the process of crafting remedial legislation covering social media (socmed), amid recent controversies triggered a blogsite criticizing lawmakers for “failure to sign” last week a resolution criticizing the wave of extrajudicial killings (EJKs) under the Duterte administration.
While mainstream journalists have guidelines in writing the news, social media bloggers do not have one, Sen. Grace Poe told reporters after presiding over a public hearing on separate bills addressing the “proliferation of fake or misleading news and false information” filed by Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Sens. Antonio Trillanes IV and Joel Villanueva.
Wednesday’s hearing was also prompted by manifestations made by Senate Majority Leader Vicente C. Sotto III and Sens. Manuel Pacquiao, Richard J. Gordon, Francis Pangilinan, Miguel Zubiri, Risa Hontiveros and Juan Edgardo Angara, following an article under the blog SilentNoMorePH criticizing the senators who failed to sign the anti-EJK resolution.
Poe clarified after the hearing that the report that the senators mentioned refused to sign the anti-EJK resolution was “erroneous.”
“It is not that they did not want to sign,” Poe said, adding that the senators did not know there was such a resolution. “Here, we see the power of bloggers who should have been responsible enough to first confirm the truth.”
Poe added that senators are not studying enactment of remedial legislation that will penalize those blogger purveying erroneous and baseless information
The senator said the reported author of the blog, identified as Coco Dayao, did not even bother to explain why he snubbed the senate hearing, prompting some senators to send a warning he could be held in contempt for ignoring Senate summons.
Poe confirmed that the witnesses who failed to appear during Wednesday’s hearing may be issued subpeonas to comple them to attend the next hearing. “For the others, I think we might have to send a subpoena order,” she said.
Poe added the committee may also summon Google at Facebook, “not necessarily to regulate them but to know the processes involved in putting out blogs.”