Cebu Auxilliary Bishop Dennis Villarojo’s message during a Mass held as part of the annual celebration of Cebu Press Freedom Week rings true not only for the media community but for the public.
In case one is too immersed in social media to notice, there is an ongoing war waged by online trolls — some if not most aligned with the administration — against the mainstream media and those who dare question President Rodrigo Duterte and his allies — a war that will spill over in next year’s elections.
One such offensive was launched against Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Mindanao correspondent Julie Alipala who was accused of being a terrorist supporter and a paid hack of the Abu Sayaff bandit group by the social media group Phil Leaks in their Facebook page Huwag Tularan.
Alipala’s reportage on the deaths of seven peasants in Patikul, Jolo in Sulu province and accusations by the families that the military were responsible for it along with the group’s baseless and dangerous labeling drew scathing comments on the group’s FB post, with one user demanding that she be ambushed.
Such venomous hostility is now par for the course for these trolls who remain faceless keyboard hacks paid to do their master’s bidding to insult and intimidate those critical of the Duterte administration.
This is what Bishop Villarojo referred to as “spiritual terror” in which one “unleashes a veritable barrage of lies and slander against whatever adversary seems most dangerous until the nerves of the attacked person breaks down.”
Villarojo attributed the quote to the book Mein Kampf written by the German dictator Adolf Hitler and this methodology is employed by these online trolls to bash and render critics into submission.
The fact that instigators of these online attacks do so from the comfort and convenience of anonymity makes them all the more spineless, gutless and cowardly.
One way to counter this poisonous phenomenon is for netizens to speak up and stand united with the maligned against these bullies who often demand for media accountability but are themselves too cowardly to stand under the glare of the public spotlight in order to substantiate their accusations with incontrovertible evidence.
It’s time as Bishop Villarojo said for media and the people “to do what’s right even when everybody thinks it’s wrong, to tell the truth even if no one believes it and to hold all men and women accountable for their actions, even if they are men and women of the Catholic Church.”
The government through its Presidential Task Force for Media Security should make good on its promise to protect journalists like Alipala from whatever threats such irresponsible comments may instigate against them.
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