Is UP student who asked Duterte questions a victim of irresponsible media?

Last March 11, a forum on transparency and good governance with guest speaker Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte was held at the UPLB (University of the Philippines Los Banos). Much as the previous forum on transparency that had Vice President Jejomar Binay as guest speaker had been controversial, this round is seeing its share of outrage from netizens who felt that Duterte had been disrespected.

But is the outrage merely misplaced and are the students involved actually victims of bad video editing? In the Rappler video report on the forum, it can be seen that a student—Ronald Gem Celestial—had approached the microphone to ask Duterte a question, but before Duterte could answer, a person can be heard off-cam shouting “Sir, sana pakisagot lang po ng diretso kasi nagtatanong po kami ng diretso dito para po makauwi na kayo.” (Sir, can you please answer the question directly, [for our part] we are asking direct questions so we can quickly send you on your way home). The video made it seem like Celestial was the same person who interrupted Duterte.

Duterte supporters took slight at this apparent rudeness and started creating malicious memes and even sending death threats to Celestial. This prompted Celestial to pen an open letter to Rappler and Duterte supporters last March 13.

“It’s quite disappointing that after ABSCBNnews.com‘s erroneous news articles on a similar event featuring UNA Presidential bet and Vice President Hon. Jejomar Binay last September 2015,” stated Celestial’s letter on Facebook, “Rappler failed to learn from it and even published a misleading video report. Rappler‘s video have misled the netizens and viewers that I, as some of his supporters would say, ‘disrespected’ their bet. This resulted to several of them sending me curses, hate messages, and death threats.”

He then appealed to “everyone to go beyond personal attacks and criticize the real problems that are plaguing our society… I believe that forums with national leaders should be used as an avenue to get to know our candidates beyond what they are being portrayed in the mainstream media. I call everyone to maximize these opportunities to know, understand and scrutinize the plans and platforms of our aspiring leaders.”

Celestial then called on Rappler and other members of the media to “stop sensationalism and be genuine vanguards of the society by reporting the struggles of the Filipino people and calling everyone to action.”

The open letter has caught the attention of Rappler and they replied to the post thus, “We reviewed the video carefully and the cut does indeed make it seem as though the question came from you, when it actually came from someone else.

“We apologize for the circumstances that the unfortunate video sequence has put you in. Rest assured it was not our intention to mislead our viewers. We have taken down the article and are editing the video to correct this.

“To those who have given Gem grief over this, please note that the question ‘Sir, sana pakisagot lang po ng diretso kasi nagtatanong po kami ng diretso dito para po makauwi na kayo’ did not come from him. Comments about the video editing should be directed at us.”

Rappler’s apology, however, was met with criticism.

“Please man up and have a public apology in your page and in your website, not just providing a link in your page to Gem’s post,” said FB user Earwin Belen. “Please exercise true accountability and maximize effort to ‘undo’ your lapses.”

“Sa dami ng pwedeng magreview niyan bago napost sa page e ngayon niyo lang nakita yung mali? (There was a lot of time to view the video before it was posted yet you only see the error now?)” remarked Justinne Audrey. “Nakalusot sa team niyo yung ganyang news material? (This kind of news material passed through your team?) Commenting on this post is not enough. Nakatanggap ng death threats yung tao. PLUS milyon-milyong Pilipino ang binigyan niyo ng maling impormasyon. If you are seriously sorry for this, use all platforms available para maicorrect niyo yung pagkakamali niyo. (The man has received death threats. PLUS millions of Filipinos were given the wrong information. If you are seriously sorry for this, use all platforms available to correct your mistake.) Don’t even get me started with your misleading headlines. It is your JOB to spread facts. You are considered professionals.”