{"id":270286,"date":"2020-09-29T22:37:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T02:37:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=270286"},"modified":"2020-09-29T22:37:00","modified_gmt":"2020-09-30T02:37:00","slug":"duterte-seeks-dialogue-not-shutdown-of-facebook-palace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/29\/duterte-seeks-dialogue-not-shutdown-of-facebook-palace\/","title":{"rendered":"Duterte seeks dialogue, not shutdown of Facebook: Palace"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte talks to the people after holding a meeting with the Inter-Agency Task Force on the Emerging Infectious Diseases (IATF-EID) core members at the Malago Clubhouse in Malaca\u00f1ang on August 31, 2020. KING RODRIGUEZ\/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday said President Rodrigo Duterte was not threatening to stop the operation of Facebook in the country when he scored the social media giant for taking down accounts and pages advocating \u201csomething\u201d that is good for the people.<\/p>\n

In a press briefing, Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said Duterte is open to a dialogue between the government and Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u201cHindi naman po<\/em>\u00a0(No, it\u2019s not),\u201d Roque replied when asked if Duterte\u2019s remark was a threat. \u201cMag-uusap po sila. Ang sabi ni Presidente kinakailangan mag-usap<\/em>\u00a0(They will talk. The President said they need to talk).\u201d<\/p>\n

He said banning Facebook would be unfavorable, not only for Facebook but also for Filipinos.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u00a0alam ninyo po parehong hindi mabuti iyan sa<\/em>\u00a0Facebook\u00a0at sa Pilipinas \u2018no<\/em>, number one\u00a0po kasi sa buong mundo tayo sa<\/em>\u00a0Facebook\u00a0\u2018no<\/em>\u00a0(Well, [the ban] would not be good for both Facebook and the Philippines, considering that we are number one in the world [for using] Facebook,\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

Roque said Facebook’s recent move is an act of censorship that suppresses freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

He questioned the social media platform’s singling out of pro-government pages by ignoring pages that criticize the administration.<\/p>\n

“Ang kongkretong aksiyon po ay huwag pong supilin ang kalayaan nang malayang pananalita ng mga personalidad o mga pages na pabor po sa gobyerno. Kasi ang nangyayari po, kapag laban sa gobyerno hindi po tinatanggal ng<\/em>\u00a0Facebook;\u00a0kapag sumusuporta sa gobyerno natatanggal po<\/em>\u00a0(The concrete action is not to suppress the freedom of speech of personalities and pages in favor of the government. What\u2019s happening is those [pages that are] against the government are not removed by Facebook; but those that support the government are taken down],” Roque said.<\/p>\n

In his public address on Monday, Duterte hit the social media giant after it recently shut down pages allegedly linked to the military and police for \u201ccoordinated inauthentic behavior\u201d last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell me,\u00a0kung bakit hindi ko magamit para sa kapakanan ng taong bayan<\/em>\u00a0(Tell me, why I cannot use (Facebook) for the welfare of the people). If government cannot use it for the good of the people, then we have to talk. We have to talk sense,\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

Duterte said the government allows Facebook to operate in the country hoping it could help in advocating what is good for the people.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, if government cannot espouse or advocate something which is for the good of the people, then what is your purpose here in my country?\u201d Duterte said.<\/p>\n

The President said his government is not advocating mass destruction but fighting insurgency that has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians in more than 50 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know Facebook, insurgency is about overturning government. What would be the point of allowing you to continue if you cannot help us,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are not advocating mass destruction, we are not advocating massacre. It\u2019s a fight of ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Facebook must explain its \u201csweeping move\u201d against the Facebook accounts detailing the atrocities committed by the New People\u2019s Army (NPA), the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).<\/p>\n

One of the pages shut down was the \u201cHands Off Our Children\u201d, whose advocacy is to prevent minors from being recruited into organizations espousing violent extremism.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlam mo pinaka-<\/em>sensitive\u00a0ang Pangulo doon sa<\/em>\u00a0Save Our Children [Hands Off Our Children] page,\u00a0okay, dahil iyon po ay pinangangalagaan po ang kapakanan ng ating kabataan<\/em>\u00a0(You know, the President is very sensitive on Hands Off Our Children page because it protects the welfare of our children),\u201d Roque said.<\/p>\n

Roque said the communists are \u201cnotorious\u201d in recruiting children as combatants despite absolute ban on the recruitment of children as fighters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIyan po iyong isa sa mga<\/em>\u00a0advocacy pages\u00a0na natanggal. Hindi po iyan minimentina ng gobyerno pero iyan po ay tumutulong sa adbokasiya ng gobyerno na isulong iyong obligasyon natin sang-ayon po sa<\/em>\u00a0Geneva Conventions\u00a0at doon sa<\/em>\u00a0additional protocols\u00a0ng<\/em>\u00a0Geneva Conventions\u00a0at doon sa<\/em>\u00a0International Convention on the Rights of the Child\u00a0\u2018no<\/em>\u00a0(It is one of the advocacy pages. The government does not maintain it but it helps the government advocacy to push our obligation based on Geneva Conventions and additional protocols of Geneva Convention and International convention on the Rights of the Child),\u201d Roque said.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u00a0\u2013 Malaca\u00f1ang on Tuesday said President Rodrigo Duterte was not threatening to stop the operation of Facebook in the country …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":267614,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-270286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","mauthors-filane-mikee-cervantes","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270286","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\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=270286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270288,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/270286\/revisions\/270288"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/267614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=270286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=270286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=270286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}