Statement of Sen. Risa Hontiveros on Pulse Asia Fake News Survey

Lumalaki ang mga anak natin sa isang lipunan ng kasinungalingan. Empowering the public to seek out credible avenues for verified information should be a top priority.

We should legislate skills-based training and media literacy programs to help the public detect fake news and re-build the habit of truth seeking. This should be backed by a strong partnership between national and local government, schools, NGOs and other training institutes.

We should also consider adopting the European Union's practice of requiring social media companies to submit reports on how disinformation spreads on their platforms and its impact on our country. It's about time that the government pressures social media networks to be accountable.

A people who are empowered to accept nothing short of the truth can starve fake news peddlers out of business. We expect the government to lead the way by being uncompromising on the truth so that integrity becomes the norm again.