ABS-CBN says sorry to UPLB

MANILA, Philippines - The management of ABS-CBN News yesterday apologized to students of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in Laguna over errors in its reporting of a forum with Vice President Jejomar Binay recently.

“ABS-CBN News expresses its sincerest apologies to the students of UP Los Baños for the errors committed by ABS-CBNnews.com in two articles about the forum of UP Los Baños students with Vice President Jejomar Binay last Sept. 15,” read the statement issued Saturday afternoon.

“In our effort to provide a more comprehensive coverage of the forum, one of our writers mistook the word ‘sample’ for ‘trapo’,” it added.

The erroneous report said UPLB students chanted “Trapo (traditional politician)! Trapo!” at Binay, who was the guest at the UPLB Forum on Governance, Transparency and Social Transformation.

However, the students actually shouted “Sample! Sample!” as they were teasing the Vice President to show his dance moves because at the time, some faculty members had just performed an intermission number.

ABS-CBN said it immediately corrected the article in question after they were alerted about the mistake on Sept. 16.

“We will be taking disciplinary steps against those responsible for this oversight,” added the media network, noting that it has also published other articles about the event.

The network did not tackle the other article in which they committed an error, although the earlier statement of the UPLB student council referred to an article initially titled as “VP Binay felt disrespected at UPLB forum.”

The article was later updated by ABS-CBN, its title changed to “VP Binay: I enjoyed UPLB forum.”

In its statement, the UPLB student council said the articles have inflicted a negative perception on UPLB students, “with misinformed netizens and readers treating and tagging UPLB students as ‘unmannered,’ and of ‘low breeding’.”

“It is insulting and is unacceptable for the part of the Iskolar ng Bayan to be wrongly portrayed by ABS-CBN’s recently published articles. Even though these articles have already been ‘updated,’ it does not deny the fact that ABS-CBN committed acts that are damaging for the students of UP Los Baños,” the statement read.