MANILA Mayor-elect Honey Lacuna did not grant any interview or issue a statement to the effect that she is offering the city legal post to Alex Lopez or any position in the office of senior citizens for Amado Bagatsing, both of whom she defeated overwhelmingly in the recently-concluded elections.
Secretary to the Mayor Bernie Ang branded as “fake news to the highest level” the tabloid news articles posted in the viber group “Honey Lacuna 2022” created by the city’s public information office which alleged that Lacuna gave an interview and offered the said positions to the two. The articles came from tabloids called, Peoples Journal and Peoples Journal Tonight and were posted by a certain Jon2 Reyes.
Ang said that firstly, Lacuna is not physically around to give any interviews since she is currently abroad to attend the graduation of her daughter.
Speaking in behalf of Lacuna, Ang also denied that their city legal officer, Atty. Emeterio Moreno, Jr., ran and won in the last elections and that for this reason, his position will be vacated and is thus being offered to Lopez.
Moreno, he said, did not run in the recent elections and even if in the event that the position will have to be filled up, Ang said their camp has more than enough people that are best qualified to become the city legal officer and who meet the standards required by the office.
The same goes for the case of the other fake news that Bagatsing is also being offered a post in the office of senior citizens affairs, Ang said.
“The whole article is total fake news from top to bottom. To attribute to the new mayor things she never said is the height of irresponsible journalism. The motive is highly malicious, specially in the light of the fact that the said tabloids have openly supported the candidacy of Lopez, to the point of even publishing fake surveys making it appear that Lopez was leading,” Ang noted. The tabloid’s managing editor is Ma. Teresa L. Lerdizabal.
Ang also said chided those running the said tabloids which he said had sunk from being a reputable paper to being a manufacturer of fake news, since its esteemed editor-in-chief, Augusto “Gus” Villanueva, got sick and passed away. He pointed out that even the camp of Vice President Leni Robredo was compelled to file a libel suit due to the brazen lies being peddled by the said newspapers for the longest time but which was only noticed by the Robredo camp when they were fed an online link.
“Even if the said tabloids no longer have circulation as we learned, it is the ill intent that matters. The said fake news was fed to the viber group where other media, whose entities have real following, happen to be members, thus making it clear that the intention was to bait them into airing or publishing the same fake news. Feeding words into the mouth of Mayor-Elect Honey Lacuna which she never even dreamed of uttering is very irresponsible and malicious,”Ang stressed, adding that the post was made just when Lacuna left to attend her daughter’s graduation in the United States.
Lacuna won via landslide victory in the recently-concluded local elections, receiving a total of 538,595 votes. Even if the votes received by Amado (118,694) and Alex (166,908) are combined, Lacuna would still be enjoying a 252,993 lead over the two.
Her runningmate, now Vice Mayor-elect Yul Servo-Nieto, currently a Manila 3rd District Representative and Deputy Majority Leader in Congress, was also proclaimed with 582,942 votes in total while coming in at far second is Raymond Bagatsing with 183,684 votes. (Baby Cuevas)
