By JOEY NACALABAN
Correspondent .
LAWYERS of Mayor Oscar Moreno are studying a print ad that called the local chief executive corrupt using a supposed quote attributed to President Duterte.
City hall spokesperson Maricel Casiño Rivera said Moreno’s lawyers met and discussed the possibility of bringing the group or the person who placed the ad to court.
The quote attributed to Duterte supposedly by Bulua barangay chairman Al Legaspi reads: “Pulihi na kana inyong Mayor kay grabe ka korap.”
Rivera said the advertorial was based on hearsay and there was no way of validating the supposed Duterte quote.
The Dec. 21 advertorial appeared in a three-column boxed space for advertising on page 4 of this paper yesterday, and was labeled as such. The same advertorial was also published by Sunstar-Cagayan de Oro. The ad was paid for by a representative of a group working in the campaign to elect as mayor former Agriculture undersecretary Jose Gabriel La Viña.
In a statement, Mayor Moreno cried foul. “We have seen this coming, but nothing can prepare anyone from the audacity of people and parties who have become so engrossed in falsity.”
Moreno reaffirmed his support for Duterte, saying that he has “high confidence in the President’s faith in the rule of law and the truth.”
He said Duterte should be spared from “cheap political gimmickry.”
Moreno continued: “Hearsay can never be the basis of the truth, falsity can never be a source of legitimate news and advertisement. A lie cannot be morally propagated with the veil of paid advertisement.
“What is happening to the supposed guardians of truth? Can monetary consideration shelve truthful and fair reporting? What is happening to the time honored principle of truth in advertising?”
Councilor Yan Lam Lim, president of the city’s Liga ng mga Barangay, doubted if Duterte ever made such a statement.
“Tinuod na naay mga Kapitan nibisita sa Malacañang when they went on Lakbay Aral last November, but I doubt they have met the President. Asa man ang groupie?”
Incidentally, Lim’s wife is a sister of a close adviser of the Duterte, and is a close friend of former Special Assistant to the President Christopher Lawrence Go. He is running for congressman in the city’s 2nd District under the administration PDP-Laban that has Moreno as standard bearer in the city.
Meanwhile, the group Pinoy Aksyon for Governance and the Environment said partisan politics “reared its ugly head” with what it called as the publication of “fake news” in the guise of a paid advertisement.
“The ultimate victim of fake news is the citizenry,” reads a statement released by the group chaired by former journalist Bencyrus Ellorin, a vocal Moreno supporter.
Reads part of the Pinoy Aksyon statement: “The public deserves full disclosure on who placed the ads? Who spent for the ads? Was the ad placed on working hours?”
The group describes itself as an independent advocacy group and think tank. Just this October, it filed a complaint before the House ethics committee against Mata na party-list congresswoman Tricia Nicole Catera. It is also behind calls for the filing of a case against those behind the shipment of wastes from South Korea that ended up at the Phividec Industrial Estate in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental.
Mayor Moreno, facing a string of cases that he described as “politically motivated and fabricated,” reiterated that he deserves his day in court like any citizen.
His lawyer, Bryan Dale Mordeno, said the cases brought by the Office of the Ombudsman to the Sandiganbayan are part of the normal legal course, and the mayor “should be pressumed innocent at all times and should be spared persecution.”
“We are standing on firm legal ground that the mayor is not guilty, and all the cases he is facing are politically motivated,” said Mordeno.
The lawyer also expressed surprise over reports that the ombudsman has directed Moreno to answer a 2016 complaint for plunder, pointing out that neither he nor his client received such an order.
“Even if that order exists, it is but a normal step in due process,” Mordeno said.
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