MANILA, Philippines — Viral posts across social media are claiming that retired UP Political Science Professor Clarita Carlos criticized ABS-CBN Corp. for what she supposedly claimed was their "biased" coverage of presidential candidates, which the posts say skews clearly towards one candidate while being disproportionately negative towards the others.
CLAIM: ABS-CBN news anchor Tony Velasquez was supposedly criticized on his own show after he purportedly claimed that Sonshine Media Network International (SMNI) was a biased media outlet.
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RATING: This is misleading.
FACTS: The conversation did go down that direction, but many of the quotes included in the post were made up.
What the post said
In a now-viral post, one Rha Yan claimed on Facebook that Velasquez categorically claimed that SMNI was a "biased" network. He supposedly went on to compare ABS-CBN to the outlet, saying, "unlike us, we do not endorse anyone."
Yan went on to claim that in response, Carlos castigated the news anchor, saying, "the people aren't stupid."
"In secrecy pero kita naman sa mga news articles nyo eh na one sided kayo lahat ng good deeds nung sinosuportahan nyo ibinabalita nyo pero yung about kay Marcos ang content ng news nyo puro negative lahat tungkol masama! Then you say your Network is not Bias like SMNI?" she is quoted as saying.
(You can see in your news articles that you are one-sided. You report all the good deeds of the candidate you support but when it comes to Marcos, the content of your news is always about negative things. Then you say your network is not bias like SMNI?)
Philstar.com Screengrab on Feb. 2, 2022, 2:30 p.m.
A number of YouTube videos by anonymous pro-administration vlogger accounts also jump on the same narrative, claiming that Velasquez was "burned" on his own show by Carlos' line of questioning.
"There is no network that doesn't endorse a candidate. Professor Clarita Carlos is correct there," YouTube channel Daily Pinas, which describes itself as the "Voice of the Netizen," said.
Philstar.com Screengrab on Feb. 2, 2022, 2:30 p.m.
What is left out
Carlos was a panelist at the SMNI Presidential Debates. A cursory watch of the actual interview aired over ABS-CBN TeleRadyo's "On the Spot" shows that neither Carlos nor Velasquez said such things.
Velasquez's question was not that SMNI was biased. He asked the professor, "If the owner of the outlet has endorsed a candidate, how is that going to affect the debate?"
He did make the comparison, but he did not use the word biased. "We as a network, we do not openly endorse any candidate," he said.
A number of lines from the original post were not actually said during the interview, including:
- "Well, I don't think if SMNI is a biased network just because they endorse Marcos publicly."
- "You said ABS-CBN did not endorse anyone as President but clearly seen in your network news content lahat puro about sa isang kandidato at puro mabango ang article nyo about sa kanya!"
- "In secrecy pero kita naman sa mga news articles nyo eh na one sided kayo lahat ng good deeds nung sinosuportahan nyo ibinabalita nyo pero yung about kay Marcos ang content ng news nyo puro negative lahat tungkol masama!. Then you say your Network is not Bias like SMNI?... hindi naman Tanga ang mga tao tony eh."
Carlos did criticize the network, but not for the quality of its content. She also never said that "every network has a candidate they endorse."
"I've been content analyzing you guys, and I count the number of minutes, micro-seconds, that you indulge in XYZ candidates. So let's not feign ignorance," she said in Filipino. This was the only quote in the post that was actually said.
"The keyword is 'openly'...A scholar like myself who content analyzes will see this trend. So you're not doing it openly, but you're doing it not openly. And that goes for the other networks. But let's not go there," she added.
But the posts also left out Carlos' own misgivings with the way the debates were organized. According to the political science professor, organizers asked her to send a list of her questions to the candidates in advance.
"So long as that person will not interfere with my ideas, it's okay...there was some discussion about the format," Carlos said as she admitted to receiving criticism online for accepting her invitation to the debates.
"I said I'm out of here...if that's what you're going to follow, please count me out. My sentence was very declarative, very categorical. I will not participate in a debate where I will send advance questions," the political science professor said. "That was my condition."
Essential context
SMNI is owned by pastor Apollo Quiboloy, founder of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, The Name Above Every Name church. Before the debates took place, Quiboloy had already publicly announced his support for presidential candidate Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the son, and namesake of the late ousted dictator. This prompted a number of presidential bets to back out of the debates themselves.
"If a presidential debate is organized by a group that has already endorsed a candidate, what message does this send to the people?" Velasquez said during his interview with Carlos.
Quiboloy is also the spiritual adviser of President Rodrigo Duterte. He has been indicted for conspiracy to engage in sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion, and sex trafficking of children; sex trafficking by force, fraud, and coercion; conspiracy; and bulk cash smuggling.
During the interview aired over ABS-CBN News, Carlos disagreed that Quiboloy's endorsement of Marcos affected the debates in any way. Many groups and sectors claimed this endorsement gave Marcos something of a "homecourt advantage."
She responded: "Actually, that's not relevant, Tony. At the start, when they started to invite and engage me for this SMNI, I didn't even bother to find out who's sponsoring it. I was more concerned about the format."
"I wanted to back out because they were talking about advance questions. I said no, I'm out of here," she said.
Why did we fact-check this?
As of this writing, the post on Facebook has garnered over 21,000 reactions, 16,000 shares and 3,700 comments on the social networking platform.
The post remains published on Facebook as of this post.
Philstar.com Screengrab on Feb. 2, 2022, 2:30 p.m.
According to CrowdTangle, a social media monitoring tool by Meta, posts mentioning the words "ABS-CBN," "Carlos" and "Velasquez" received over 12,000 interactions on the platform on Tuesday.
In the past week, twelve such posts were published on Facebook, with two highest-performing posts garnering over 2,000 interactions at minimum.
They were also posted by anonymous pages supportive of the election tandem of Marcos and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio.
The video by BhilyTV was also cross-posted 167 times on Facebook, while the YouTube post by Daily Pinas was posted 39 times on Facebook.
— with a report from Kristine Joy Patag
This story is part of the Philippine Fact-check Incubator, an Internews initiative to build the fact-checking capacity of news organizations in the Philippines and encourage participation in global fact-checking efforts.
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