MALACAñANG on Monday disowned an online poll ran by Presidential Communications Assistant Secretary Margaux ‘Mocha’ Uson that the Edsa Revolution was a product of fake news, adding it was Uson’s undertaking and did not represent the government views.
Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque denied that Uson was under the Presidential Spokesperson’s office but appointed as Presidential Communications and Operations Office assistant secretary.
“She’s not my Asec, because she is a PCOO Asec,” Roque said in a press briefing in Malacañang, when asked regarding Mocha’s Facebook poll asking the public whether Edsa was a product of “fake news.”
“According to the law, it is not fake news. We honor the Edsa Revolution having declared it as a public holiday.
We even have appropriate funds to commemorate the event,” Roque said.
Roque said the Duterte administration would continue to recognize Edsa Revolution because “it is already a part of the Philippine history.”
“We will always recognize Edsa not only as an important historical event, but it was the first bloodless people power revolution in the whole entire planet earth; and it remains significant,” he said.
Asked why President Rodrigo Duterte did not attend the Edsa celebration, the Malacañang official said the President had to attend to his constituents in Mindanao.
“The absence of Duterte in Edsa is not attempt to diminish the significance of Edsa revolution, since the ceremonies are being spearheaded by the National Historical Commission no less,” he said.
This was the second time that Duterte skipped the Edsa celebration.
Roque, however, defended the absence of Duterte as having to do with with politics, claiming that in the past, not all Presidents showed up.
“The Edsa revolution remains. It remains in our statute books. As in fact, the ceremonies are being, well, spearheaded by the National Historical Commission no less,” he added.
Meanwhile, the militant Partido Manggagawa said the spirit of Edsa failed in many respects, because real political and economic power, during the last 32 years, remained captured by the elite.
“The people, therefore, have the right and reason to seek redress and more so demand changes in their present condition of living under poverty and inequality. But such change we never envisioned to be lead (sic) by Duterte minions in Congress led by Pantaleon Alvarez,” the PM said in a statement.
The labor group said changing the constitution or restoring another type of dictatorship was not their demand, and that charter change was never the top concerns of Filipinos.
“The government, past and present, were aware of these demands such as ending endo and realizing the principle of living wage —yet no change is happening,” PM chairman Rene Magtubo said.