EDITORIAL: The Times’ prerogative to end Tatad’s fake storytelling – By Dr. Dante A. Ang | T.M.Times

Erstwhile columnist Mr. Francisco S. Tatad lied when he said he was fired from The Manila Times upon instructions from President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. I swear on the graves of my parents that no such thing ever happened.

Neither the President nor any of his close advisers called me to terminate Mr. Tatad’s services with the Times. The fact is, in the few times that I’ve met with the President, not once had he bothered mentioning to me Mr. Tatad’s name or referred to any of his excoriating articles at all.

I will not prolong the argument. Let’s settle the issue. I challenge Mr. Tatad that we both undergo a lie detector test anywhere, anytime as he pleases to determine once and for all who between the two of us is lying on this matter.

Mr. Tatad went ballistic over the nonpublication of his Monday’s commentary that was supposed to be his “farewell” piece for this paper. No editor with a sound mind would publish an article from one of his columnists that maligns the paper and its owners with lies, innuendos, malice and much more.

Does Mr. Tatad honestly think I will give him space in my paper for his egregious, baseless, malicious article that assaults my competence and integrity, and pay him for it? Besides, publishing his malicious piece would be contrary to reason and violative of the canons of journalism.

He bemoans the “killing” of his last article and conflates it with the suppression of press freedom, conveniently forgetting that even as a columnist, his comments must be based on facts just the same, to come up with a fair and objective opinion. Failing the test, editors have a solemn duty and the right to deny publication of the false story. I cannot allow The Manila Times to deliberately publish fake news and hate news.

Does Mr. Tatad’s story pass the test of the canons of journalism?

What is Journalism?
Journalism is truthful information. Journalism informs. It aims to move people to come to an informed decision or perception of ideas or events. It contributes to societal good. It provokes public discussion on the relevant issues of the day. Absent the truth, a story is meaningless and worse, becomes propaganda, black propaganda if you will, which could destroy the lives of the innocent.

To cite one example, Mr. Tatad has loosely accused me of acting as consultant to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor). Even a mediocre journalist would have exhibited the most basic element of reporting: call the source for confirmation. He did not. If only he had asked me, I would have enlightened him there was no truth to that allegation and that he was given a bum stir. Kuryente. But he was not interested in the truth; only in letting his uncontrolled steam off, regardless of the truth.

Journalism is also humility. A journalist worth his salt owns up to his mistakes and humbly apologizes for them. Not Mr. Tatad. He never makes mistakes and doesn’t accept them.

Take another example. Mr. Tatad wrote that the President went under the knife for a kidney transplant during the 14 days when the Chief Executive was not seen in public. He cited two independent sources. Mr. Tatad wants us to swallow his fake news hook, line and sinker. Having two or more, or even a million independent sources are not justifiable reasons for writing a ridiculous, dubious, improbable, incredible story under the guise of journalism.

Yet, he insists on his yarn.

Journalists, even newspaper columnists, have a duty to vet, cross check, and weigh the credibility of the information he uses and not solely depend on the so-called independent sources, who could, on multiple occasions, turn out to be unreliable and patently false, as what happened to Iraq when United States President George Bush invaded it on the strength of a hoax that Iraq was in possession of WMD (weapons of mass destruction). Two decades later, the US finally admitted that it was given false information by a detainee in order to spare the prisoner from further torture by the CIA.

Mr. Tatad should have used critical thinking and asked himself if it was possible for a man 73 years old, like the President, to be up and about 14 days after such procedure, moving around the country, meeting various constituencies for hours on end, before even contemplating to write the story. To this day, Mr. Tatad insists that President Duterte, indeed, had a kidney transplant during the 14-day period when the President withdrew from the public only because, the President has not bothered to deny it.

Mr. Tatad should have cross-checked with and sought the opinion of his specialist-friends from the medical industry — a urologist, a nephrologist, a surgeon perhaps, or just a plain clinician. He did not. And he doesn’t care. I accuse Mr. Tatad of lying. His so-called “two independent sources” exist only in his imagination. He knows he was wrong, yet he insists on his fiction. Why? Pinangatawanan na. Kahiyaan na.

I met with Mr. Tatad at 3:00 p.m. Friday in my office upon his request. In that meeting, I told him that, I was with the President in Malacañang for an hour of presentation on the ongoing peace talks, on revenue enhancement and on how to stop corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs (BoC). Present in that meeting were also Department of Labor and Employment Secretary Silvestre Belo 3rd; Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process Chairman retired General Carlito Galvez Jr. and BoC Commissioner retired General Rey Guerrero, on one of those 14 days, when the President was not seen in public as Mr. Tatad claimed.

I also added that some days after, I was with the President in Hong Kong during the birthday celebration of Honeylet Avanceña in a dinner hosted by some 15 of his supporters at a simple Chinese restaurant. I had wanted to impress on Mr. Tatad in a not-too-subtle fashion that he was wrong in his report. He did not show any remorse.

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A play for martyrdom
Mr. Tatad is a seasoned writer and politician. He knows only too well that the editors of The Manila Times will not allow any of their contributors to assault the integrity and credibility of the Times and the owners with a piece laden with lies, malice and skewed data. Why then did he submit it?

He was testing his limits and provoking the Times. Hubris. He was not interested in having his piece published because he knew that it would not be printed. He was playing to the gallery, soliciting sympathy from the public, masking himself as a persecuted journalist fighting for a cause in defense of press freedom.

I had never imagined that I would one day be writing this article in response to the accusations of my erstwhile columnist. This is not a pleasant chore. But I cannot allow his yarn to come to pass with nary a word the better to protect and uphold the integrity of The Manila Times and to illuminate the public of the facts that led to the termination of his services as a columnist.

Defending press freedom
He wrote, “It is censorship of the worst kind, the biggest blow to press freedom, coming down from the highest political power in the land, and facilitated by the very newspaper that was supposed to oppose it and fight for the rights of its intended victim.”

What censorship was he talking about? All his excoriating articles against the President saw print on our paper, save the last, and only because it was full of manufactured data, illogical, if highly improbable scenarios. In fairness to the President, he has not called my attention, much less admonish me for Mr. Tatad’s nasty pieces; not once, not ever.

Mr. Tatad talks of defending “the rights and dignity of the free press with blood, if need be, rather than submit to the biggest bully that comes around.” He also reportedly said that “It is the obligation of the management of any news institutions to protect and defend press freedom. Ipagtatanggol n’ya yun kahit kausap n’ya ay leon … kung ‘yung buhay n’ya pwede nyang ialay? Gawin niya. Pero hindi nangyari ‘yan.” (He will defend that freedom even against a fierce lion … If doing that would require him to lay down his life, he would do it. But he did not.) I couldn’t agree more.

Press freedom has its boundaries. Press freedom is the freedom to express one’s views or actions, either in agreement with or contrary to something. Press freedom does not mean freedom to malign, freedom to write falsehoods, freedom to twist or bend the facts. In the case of Mr. Tatad, his was fake news, which is another form of black propaganda.

Why would I defend falsehoods? Who would defend the people against falsehoods? Who would defend the people against abusive, malicious journalists who write to advance their sinister agenda?” Not me. If Mr. Tatad thinks that I will fight for his lies and defend these with my life, he has another think coming. He must be out of his racks. Siya muna magpakain sa leon. Huwag na nya kong isama. Good luck.

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Tatad not fired
I merely obliged him. On Thursday morning, he called but I was in a meeting. That same night, I returned his call, and he said, “I want to talk to you.” I set our meeting for 2:00 p.m. the following day, Friday, at my office. He came in around 3:00 p.m. and we talked while my other meeting on the other side of my office was going on.

The first words that came out of his mouth were, “I don’t want to put The Manila Times in a compromised position.” I figured he was referring to the excoriating pieces he had published on our paper against President Duterte. He went on to recount the way the President lambasted him and his spouse in a rally somewhere. He started to mumble and honestly, I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying. I have to confess that I am hard of hearing on my right ear.

So, when he said, “I do not want to put The Manila Times in a compromised position,” what am I to do? Beg him to stay? If he was bluffing, woe to him, I accepted his bluff. And so I said, “Write your last column.” Maybe he was soliciting my sympathy. As a Christian, I sympathize with him, but he should accept the reality that he was solely to blame for his miseries. Like Mr. Tatad, I, too, was relieved but not outraged. I welcomed his decision.

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No censorship in the Times, except against fake news
It is there for all to see. Mr. Tatad’s false narratives about the President’s alleged kidney transplant and much more were published in the Times without any editor calling his attention to the flawed, if malicious, articles. We have allowed him to write his opinion pieces, inaccuracies notwithstanding, save for his “Farewell” article, out of respect to him. I dare Mr. Tatad to say otherwise.

We have trusted and respected him for his wide experience as a journalist and we looked up to him as a paragon of responsible journalism. We were disappointed. His articles were far from being accurate and objective, hardly the type of work a good, veteran journalist, or columnist for that matter, would normally exhibit. It would now seem that he is too righteous and can’t accept his mistakes.

A good journalist is one who is uncompromising, truthful, objective and always ready to apologize for his mistakes. Not Mr. Tatad. Saying sorry is not in his vocabulary. There is no shame in admitting one’s mistakes. No matter how principled or uncompromising a journalist is, he accepts his errors and makes a public apology. That’s the hallmark of a true professional.

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Obligations of a newspaper
A newspaper exists for the purpose of informing the people by rendering accurate, fair and objective news and commentaries and to act against abuses by those in power, whether in or out of government. The Times adheres to that principle. In advance countries such as the US and Germany, reporters and opinion writers were fired from their jobs for faulty reporting or fake news.

In Germany, award-winning reporter and editor for Der Spiegel, a widely read news magazine, Clauss Relotius was forced to resign after it was discovered that he falsified “articles on a grand scale and even inventing a character, deceiving both readers and colleagues.”

In the US, iconic Dan Rather of CBS was dropped from the network for a similar offense. And in June, 2017 “three prominent CNN newsmen had to resign after the cable company was “forced to retract and apologize for a story on its website involving a close ally of President Trump.”

Bottomline: Those newsmen were fired by their respective news organizations, one, for filing false reports; and, two, the networks couldn’t stand by their stories.

Mr. Tatad has filed multiple fake news for which The Manila Times couldn’t stand by their accuracy. And so the Times has decided to exercise its editorial prerogative in order to protect and uphold what Mr. Tatad calls the tenets of journalism.

Mr. Tatad should thank his lucky stars the Times did not fire him for his fraudulent reports.

Now, Mr. Tatad cries persecution. Give me a break.

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COMMENT:
MR. ANG RESIGN FROM POST GIVEN BY DU30,
THEN SAY TO THE MARINES,  “I QUIT”,
TAKE YOUR BREAK…. DUMDUM…

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