It is disheartening to see that some government officials have taken a page from US President Donald Trump’s playbook to denounce the media when the administration gets it wrong.
This week, Foreign Affairs Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jr. apologized to presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo for calling him out on his statement that “it doesn’t matter who drafted” the agreement on joint oil and gas development in the South China Sea between the Philippines and China, since the document would be thoroughly vetted anyway.
His initial reaction and apology were both done on Twitter, a platform that lends itself to immediate—and often ill-considered shorthand responses based on incomplete or wrong information.
“Palace Com doesn’t care if it is a Chinese draft? I fu*k*n* care!” Locsin said in a Twitter post on Nov. 21. “A framework or architecture for gas and oil in our part of the sea demands that draft be MINE… MIO… FILIPINO.”
His apology to Panelo and denunciation of the media were just as swift.
“Lying media had you saying, “We don’t care if China made the first draft.” I reacted: “I fu*k*n* care.” Sorry. I fell for media lie. When I was in media I never lied,” Locsin said in a tweet two days later.
We are grateful, of course, for Secretary Locsin’s clarification that he never lied when he was in media. We certainly hope he will carry over this tradition in his new role as Foreign Affairs secretary.
We do take issue with the broad brush the secretary uses to smear all the working men and women of the press when he uses terms such as “lying media” and “media lie.” Does he believe in Trump’s mantra that the media are the enemy of the people?
When a government official gets his foot in his mouth, he often tries to shift the blame by saying he was misquoted. But was the presidential spokesman really misquoted?
His full quote was: “If, assuming if, China made the first draft, so what, we vet it anyway.”
Was it a lie to paraphrase Panelo’s “So what” response by writing that he said it didn’t matter who made the first draft of the agreement because it would be vetted anyway?
Assuming, too, that there were nuances of meaning that were not conveyed in the news reports, was this truly a bigger offense than rushing to judgment with an ill-considered tweet?
Secretary Locsin might recall that a responsible journalist verifies his or her facts before going to print. Shouldn’t a high-ranking government official do the same before he flies off the handle and publicly shames the presidential spokesman, then the “lying media” in turn, simply because he just had to scratch his Twitter itch?