Palace: We should respect the President’s landslide victory

FILE: Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque Jr. ( YANCY LIM/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO)

Malacañang defended the President from the allegations associating his electoral victory in 2016 with controversial Cambridge Analytica’s parent company.

“We should respect the President’s landslide victory, which was a result of the trust and confidence of the Filipino people, and not undermine it with unsubstantiated allegations,” Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque, Jr. said in a statement on Tuesday, April 10.

“The President won the election fair and square with an overwhelming mandate of over 16 million votes and a margin of over six million,” he stressed.

President Rodrigo Roa Duterte’s childhood friend, highschool classmate, and Department of Finance (DOF) Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, who served as the President’s fundraising and campaign finance manager, denied the connection.

“The Secretary of Finance, in his capacity as treasurer of the campaign, assures us that he did not pay Cambridge Analytica or transacted with them,” Roque said.

The spokesman also maintained that Facebook is not the only factor that made Duterte win.

“Support for the former Davao city mayor was from all sectors and not just from Facebook or online; thus the Duterte campaign did not have to purchase information,” he said.

Roque was commenting on the report published by South China Morning Post (SCMP) revealed that Strategic Communications Laboratories (SCL), the parent company of Cambridge Analytica, cited the Philippines as one of its clients.

The website content and section are already deleted from the website, but archived versions are still available online.

(Read: Report says Cambridge Analytical parent co may have helped Duterte win election)

Duterte was not mentioned but SCMP pointed out that the description pertained to the Philippine President.

“In the run-up to national elections, the incumbent client was widely perceived as both kind and honourable, qualities his campaign team thought were potentially election-winning. But SCL’s research showed that many groups within the electorate were more likely to be swayed by qualities such as toughness and decisiveness,” the website content read.

“SCL used the crosscutting issue of crime to rebrand the client as a strong no-nonsense man of action, who would appeal to the true values of the voters,” it added.