Robredo admits mistakes in responding to misinformation during her VP stint

Leni Robredo on Thursday admitted that she and her supporters erred in responding to the misinformation about her during her stint as vice president, saying it was already "too late" when they decided to act.

"We committed a lot of mistakes in responding to misinformation. It started in 2016, when I won as vice president," Robredo told the attendees of Democracy Forum organized by the Obama Foundation of former US President Barack Obama.

"Our response was, it is fake news, don't dignify it [with a response]. We thought it was the right thing to do. When they go low, we go high. Until it was too late," she said.

The widow of the late Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo said correcting fake news "about three years on" was already "too late."

"Correcting [and] fact checking are only heard in our echo chambers because there is already a separate reality. There were already cells created by the disinformation that we cannot penetrate," Robredo explained when asked about her experience with disinformation while she was vice president.

Fact-checking initiative group Tsek.ph said on May 7, 2022 or two days before the 2022 elections that Robredo was the top target of disinformation, putting her in a negative light at 96% of fact-checked content. 

Robredo was the opposition's standard-bearer in the May 2022 presidential race.

Robredo, during the forum, said her supporters' efforts to fight and correct the disinformation "only added to the polarization."

"We tried looking at best practices, like the Turkey opposition’s radical love campaign. We tried it and we succeeded in some ways...we asked our supporters to be more kind, calm, understanding. It was difficult because everything was so polarized already," she said.

"During the campaign, we have encouraged people to go out of social media and talk to people...we had volunteers who engaged in grounded conversations with people with different perspective. We made a lot of breakthroughs, but time was too short," Robredo added, referring to the house-to-house campaign organized by her supporters during her presidential campaign.

Robredo, however, noted that all hope is not lost.

She cited that there is already research on disinformation, and that there is already one on disinformation operations in the Philippines by Jonathan Ong, a Filipino fellow of Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

"They have a broader set of recommendations. It wasn’t the same [situation] six years ago. We have learned from our mistakes," Robredo said.

"We are moving forward," she added. —KBK, GMA Integrated News