{"id":213376,"date":"2019-05-08T22:17:07","date_gmt":"2019-05-09T02:17:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=213376"},"modified":"2019-05-08T22:17:07","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T02:17:07","slug":"liberal-party-other-groups-tagged-in-plot-to-discredit-duterte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/05\/08\/liberal-party-other-groups-tagged-in-plot-to-discredit-duterte\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal Party, other groups tagged in plot to discredit Duterte"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Presidential Spokesperson and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Secretary Salvador Panelo holds a press briefing for the Malaca\u00f1ang Press Corps (MPC) at the New Executive Building (NEB) in Malaca\u00f1ang on May 8, 2019. (Screenshot from Video<\/a>: Office of the Presidential Spokesperson\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0— The opposition Liberal Party (LP) and other groups are conspiring to discredit President Rodrigo Duterte and boost their candidates\u2019 chances of winning in the upcoming mid-term polls, Malaca\u00f1ang said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

In a Palace briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo presented a cartolina-sized diagram which showed that some members of LP, Magdalo group, and media organizations in the \u201cOust Duterte\u201d matrix are working together as part of efforts to destroy the Duterte administration\u2019s image.<\/p>\n

This new diagram, the first of many other matrices, came two weeks after Panelo released the “Oust Duterte” matrix that links media outlets Rappler, Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ), Vera Files, and lawyers\u2019 group National Union of People\u2019s Lawyers (NUPL) as part of a coordinated media plot to discredit the President.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Office of the President, the President himself has received information, intelligence information that has been validated and appears to show that there is a deliberate attempt to discredit this administration, as well as to boost the candidacies of the opposition\u2019s senatorial candidates and it appears that there are certain groups who are working together to achieve this goal,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

He said this group appears to be the LP with some personalities identified as advocates or very active in social media dishing out anti-Duterte statements and sentiments that were validated to be allied with LP, which is also working together with groups as indicated in the matrix presented the other week.<\/p>\n

Panelo said copies of the matrices were validated by the President himself.<\/p>\n

Conspirators<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based on the analysis, Panelo noted \u201cmulti-noble relationships\u201d of the groups in the matrices from Vera Files president Ellen Tordesillas, particularly on her online activities.<\/p>\n

Panelo said Tordesillas\u2019 activities revealed \u201ca very active collaboration\u201d between the groups of former Presidential Spokesperson Edwin Lacierda, blogger Eduardo \u201cCocoy\u201d Dayao, exiled communist rebel leader Jose Maria \u201cJoma\u201d Sison, Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, website developer Rodel Jayme — the narrator in the \u201cAng Totoong Narcolist\u201d videos linking Duterte\u2019s family and allies to the drug trade — Bong Banal, and other LP groups and supporters.<\/p>\n

He said Arman Pontejos, a former Navy officer and a member of the Magdalo group, also collaborated with Jayme, who is behind the Metro Balita website where the Bikoy videos first surfaced. The same site promotes “Otso Diretso” candidates on its Facebook page.<\/p>\n

Moreover, another diagram showed links between the NUPL, Jayme, Trillanes, Otso Diretso candidates Gary Alejano and Florin Hilbay, and media outlets Rappler and Vera Files.<\/p>\n

Panelo said many of the names mentioned in the diagram, mostly advocates of LP, shared the same four-square meter office in Makati and that they share the same e-mail addresses.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe intelligence information shows that some of them, if not all of them, are using the same office \u2014 a four square meter office. And then, even their e-mail address appears to be \u2014 that their e-mails are the ones sharing this video of Bikoy,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is obvious that these groups have linked together to discredit the Duterte administration and to boost the candidacies of the Otso Diretso senatorial candidates,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Different voices<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panelo bared the new matrices a day after he said that Peter Joemel Advincula, a man claiming to be \u201cBikoy\u201d in the “Ang Totoong Narcolist” videos, was only being used as a \u201cpawn\u201d by groups seeking to discredit the President.<\/p>\n

He claimed that Advincula\u2019s voice did not match the voice of Bikoy in the videos since they had different accents.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you listen, you will notice that the accent of the Bikoy in the video has an Ilocano accent, while Bikoy who represents himself as Peter Advincula has a Bicolano accent because he is a Bicolano from Sorsogon,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

He also claimed that Banal, a known LP advocate, is the narrator in the controversial videos.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears now in that video, it was Bong Banal who was the narrator. And Bong Banal is supposed to be kind of expert in IT, and a known advocate of the Liberal Party,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

In a separate statement, Banal also denied Panelo\u2019s allegation and dismissed it as \u201cfake news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panelo, meanwhile, said Palace will allow the Department of Justice (DOJ) to determine whether cases could be filed against those involved in the conspiracy.<\/p>\n

Asked if the new matrices were also obtained from a foreign source like the “Oust Duterte” matrix, Panelo said he had no knowledge but trusted the President\u2019s word.<\/p>\n

\u201cKnowing him as one who is a thinking President, he would have validated every information he has received,\u201d Panelo said.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Philippine National Police (PNP) spokesperson, Col. Bernard Banac, said the PNP fully supports the efforts of the government to identify the people behind the videos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to investigate and file appropriate charges, if evidence warrants,\u201d Banac said.<\/p>\n

Tordesillas, in a separate statement, denied Panelo\u2019s allegation and challenged him to present proof to his claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cI deny allegations by Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo linking me to any imagined destabilization efforts against the administration. I challenge him to present evidence, not just silly diagrams,\u201d Tordesillas said in her official Twitter account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0— The opposition Liberal Party (LP) and other groups are conspiring to discredit President Rodrigo Duterte and boost their candidates\u2019 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":213377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-azer-parrocha","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213376"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213376\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":213378,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213376\/revisions\/213378"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}