‘PDI’s anonymous news source was tainted’

We find it unfortunate that the Inquirer statement on the Dasmariñas incident misses the point: The reporter relied on an unnamed source who fed her lies. Not several sources, but principally just one source, as clearly stated in the Dec. 19 story.

And we have received information that the source is allegedly a person who hates the Binay family and has a history of making biased and unfounded statements against them. If this is true, then the reporter’s source is a tainted one.

The Dec. 19 story was anchored on a fabricated event (the so-called arrest of the guards) and a fabricated quote (“Do you know me?”) coming from this one anonymous source who clearly wanted to escape accountability.

The Inquirer reporter highlighted these lies despite denials and clarifications from two persons who had direct knowledge of the incident: the Makati chief of police and the owner of the security agency.

In fact, the owner of the agency, Ram Antonio, said he gave the reporter a rather lengthy interview on Dec. 18 but his statement was treated like an afterthought. The follow-up story of Dec. 20 said Antonio left the country and could not be reached for comment. I talked to Antonio in the morning of Dec. 19 and he said he was calling the reporter but his calls were unanswered. All through the day, he was interviewed by different media outlets but never by the reporter who had his number. He left the country late afternoon.

Again, these are the facts: (1) No arrests were made or ordered. (2) The mayor never said the words attributed to him by the reporter’s conveniently anonymous source.

The statement says the reporter interviewed police officers who were at the scene. But the video showed the police arriving at 11:49 p.m. or 10 minutes after the mayor’s convoy was stopped at Banyan gate. The policemen were not there at the time the Inquirer source claimed the mayor uttered the words, “Do you know me?” Again, we would like to emphasize that the mayor never said these words. The quote is a total fabrication, a work of fiction from the Inquirer’s anonymous and tainted source. By the way, it might interest you to know that the video was first offered to a reporter of a TV network, but it was not deemed newsworthy.

The only police officer quoted by the Inquirer reporter was the chief of police. But his clarification and explanation—which contradict the claim of the anonymous source—were reduced to one line at the bottom of the story. Who then was the source of the fabricated quote?

The reporter’s source also claimed that the mayor came from his sister’s house in Dasmariñas Village. Wrong. The mayor came from a party on Bougainvilla Street. Were the police officers also the source of this wrong information?

The Dec. 19 front page also splashed a photo grab showing Sen. Nancy Binay with her image encircled. The treatment gives off the impression that the senator figured prominently in the incident. In truth, the senator only stepped out of her vehicle for a short period of time and then went back in. She was inside her vehicle most of the time. We hope there was no malice in the treatment of the photo.

These are unfortunate lapses in basic news gathering and fact checking.

We maintain that the information given to the reporter by her anonymous source is false and malicious. The report as published fails the test of accuracy and fairness.

The incident at Dasmariñas Village was unfortunate. The misunderstanding was resolved in a matter of hours. The agency apologized and admitted their fault, and the mayor accepted the apology. We hope it would not be an imposition to ask the Inquirer not to reprint information that has already been denied or clarified by persons who allowed themselves to be identified.

—JOEY SALGADO,

chief, Information and Community Relations Department,

city spokesperson, Makati City