Why pieces of fake news surge

In the history of France, there was a prisoner during the reign of King Louis XIV, who was more known as the "Man in the Iron Mask." He was a figure of great intrigue. His identity and the reason for his imprisonment were shrouded in secrecy as he was forced to wear a mask, while behind prison bars, to prevent anyone from seeing his face. The ensuing confusion ushered to a proliferation of disinformation and fake news. Even after great efforts of many to know who really was the prisoner, an evolving fact only narrowed down to two possible prisoners in Ercole Matthioli and Eustache Dauger, who happened to be notable personalities. The pall of suspicion and intrigue among the French remained high. It seemed that every Frenchman fed on ugly rumors and continued flow of untruthful news stories among them if only to fill information gaps.

I am seeing a horrible surge of fake news in our country worse than what took place in France then. Bits of false information were relayed thru the French ears, one person to another at a time. In comparison, our numerous pieces of disinformation, blast digitally to thousands of cellular phones by just pressing a keyboard and the variety of startling news contents seem to indicate a cavalry of news peddlers. All these muddle the ever conflicting accounts. According to the internet, fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.

More than a year ago, while attending a regular meeting of a group of Cebu’s media personalities, I became an instant filler. The invited guest failed to appear. To make use of time, my peers wanted to know my take on the case filed against former President Rodrigo Duterte before the International Criminal Court. I had to be honest with them that I had no privity with the filing of the case neither with the accusers. But I then told my audience, rather boldly, of my opinion that a warrant of arrest that would be issued against our former president in the third quarter of last year, 2024.

Before that media men’s meeting, I was motivated to know whether Duterte would also suffer the ignominy of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, who became the first sitting head of state charged with war crimes. With that objective in mind, I sifted thru reports of mainstream media outlets, the internet and some relevant documents and recalled my academic discussion on “Hostis humani generis," many years ago while teaching Public International Law. This Latin term translates to "enemy of all mankind" in English. It is used to describe individuals or entities whose actions are so universally condemned that they are considered threats to humanity as a whole, often associated with heinous crimes.

In general, the accusation against Duterte is not dissimilar to that of Milosevic. As reported, a former policeman who claimed, in a 300+ paged Sworn Statement, to have headed a bunch of cold bloodied killers, organized allegedly upon the behest of our former president, went to a killing rampage. That firsthand account, supported later by the declarations of witnesses and members of the families of victims, should stand the universal demands of probable cause needed for ICC’s determination of the need to issue a warrant of arrest.

Many of us were unprepared when Duterte was arrested. Even my friends in the media did not take my alert seriously. We could not accept that an international tribunal will serve as a kind of trial court to determine the innocence or guilt of our past president. In fact, we did not understand why our government would allow the arrest of Duterte.

The hurt emotions of many of our countrymen who continue to idolize Duterte made them search for answers to many questions. Unfortunately, the basic questions surrounding the issuance of the warrant of arrest and its eventual service upon Duterte are legal in nature which hurt emotions refuse to understand. Heart and mind have different loops. If the Frechmen did not know why Ercole Matthioli or Eustache Dauger was imprisoned, thousands of Filipinos do not know or refuse to know the legal impacts of little understood international law. That is why in our sincere desire to protect a fellow Filipino from being tried in a foreign land, we pick from our imaginations our own thoughts, the right s as far wrong ones included and put these out in social media mostly as if they are not baseless information.