BY RAYMUND F. ANTONIO
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VICE President Leni Robredo will be taking to court the people behind the false and malicious information that she had distributed spoiled food to frontliners in a Quezon City hospital.
“We have taken steps already. We are making sure that we will make these people accountable,” Robredo said on Thursday, June 25, in an interview with ANC’s Headstart.
According to Robredo, she has already formed a team from her office that will gather evidence and unmask the real identities of those involved for the case.
“We will be seeking a formal investigation. I have already assigned a team to gather all the evidences on hand,” she said.
The vice president asked the public to help report social media users who spread false claims her office had distributed spoiled food to Diliman Doctors Hospital, while her spokesperson, Barry Gutierrez, offered money to hospital staff to keep quiet about the incident.
The Diliman Doctors Hospital issued a statement dismissing the allegations, citing that it received food donations on “three occasions” from Robredo’s office, but “none of which have been found to be spoiled.”
Robredo said she had long been considering filing charges against fake news peddlers, but she had “backed down at the last minute” because it was against her advocacy to decriminalize libel and cyber libel.
But this time, Robredo took exception to the unfounded rumors besmirching her office’s coronavirus response efforts.
“Itong fake news, hindi lang ito against sa akin. It’s against society as a whole,” Robredo, who is an opposition leader, said.
