Fake news and prenuptials

CAPILLAS

How does one deal with fake news on one’s social media accounts?

Due to my exposure to traditional and online media, which included working in it, I take fake news not with a grain of salt (which would be a waste of a valuable condiment but on its entertainment value. Of course it goes without saying that verifying the identity of the messenger and counter-checking the article is very important.

Fake news would be ignored just like anything else a person deems not worth his or her time unless it has entertainment value, i.e, it immediately grabs your attention and reels you in long enough for them to deliver the punch line or the hook of their story.

That’s how Mocha Uson, a.k.a. former entertainer and now Palace official, got to where she is now. She knows how to grab people’s attention and keep it long enough to draw them to what she’s selling which in her current job is her boss “Tatay Digong” or President Rodrigo Duterte.

I write about this in relation to the online feud that broke out between TV and radio broadcaster Erwin Tulfo and journalist Ed Lingao. It started when Lingao criticized Tulfo for erroneously lambasting Sen. Risa Hontiveros for her stand against martial law declaration in Mindanao.

In an expletive-filled rant on his radio show, Tulfo castigated the senator for allegedly voicing support to the Maute terrorist group that had wrought havoc in Marawi City since last month.

The basis for Tulfo’s rant, Lingao said, stemmed from a TV interview the senator had in which she questioned the Duterte administration’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao due to the Marawi City siege.

The senator supposedly called up Tulfo to clarify that she wasn’t supporting the Maute terrorist group and in fact called them terrorists. Tulfo then reminded listeners that she issued a denial, not a clarification of her statements.

Suffice it to say that Lingao was attacked by Tulfo’s followers online and even Tulfo’s elder brother Ben joined in on the fray by threatening him (pupulbusin kita).

What made the verbal tirades more reprehensible was that it didn’t spare Ed Lingao’s daughter who passed away last month. It’s bad enough that Tulfo made a mistake by not only accusing but insulting Senator Hontiveros for saying something she didn’t exactly say in the first place.

No thanks to the rabid followers of President Duterte, the senator’s statement had been twisted to provide ammunition for his loyalists to rain down their own version of hellfire on the opposition through social media.

I hope that the feud between Lingao and Tulfo/s won’t degenerate into a fistfight.

Trolls, who by nature are a cowardly lot that are loath to reveal themselves in public, will have a field day crowing about their latest handiwork.

I hope that Fakeblok, a Google Chrome plug-in built to sanitize a person’s Facebook page of fake news, gains currency among the public so the ranks of these fake news sites, accounts and trolls would be thinned out considerably.

It’s bad enough dealing with hard-core Duterte fanatics who hurl insults and harass critics relentlessly even without provocation online.

So how does one deal with fake news online or anywhere else? Read it, have a good laugh if it’s funny or entertaining, or if it galls and makes you retch, delete it, carry on and move elsewhere. Life is too short to entertain or give these trolls a moment of your precious time.

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In light of the tragedy that befell the family of Bien Unido Mayor Gisela Bendong-Boniel, talk about proposals to allow divorce in the country resurfaced anew, and while a lot of Filipinos still believe in the sanctity of marriage — June being the marriage month — they also accept the fact that not all unions will eventually work out.

Aside from divorce, Filipino couples who are well off may consider entering into a pre-nuptial agreement in order to deal with one less issue when they do decide to split up for good.

One of the most vocal advocates for pre-nuptial agreements — which allow both spouses to set parameters in the amount of money or property a husband or wife will be required to give as alimony or support to his or her spouse in case of a divorce — was then mogul-turned-US President Donald Trump.

Trump is the least qualified to give marital advice given his affairs and divorces, but his advice on prenuptial agreements is worth pondering on, in light of what happened to the Boniel couple who supposedly fought over some financial matters among other issues.

Among the more popular Filipino couples who signed a prenuptial agreement was Sen. Francis Pangilinan and famed actress/singer Sharon Cuneta, both of whom are independently wealthy in their own right.

It is said that the senator’s willingness to sign the agreement convinced Cuneta, who had previous romantic ties with other men after separating from actor Gabby Concepcion, to tie the knot with him.

That said, whatever convinced either mayor Boniel or her husband — who’s languishing in jail for her murder — that their union had ended appears moot and academic now that she’s gone.