AKO BICOL Party-list Representative Alfredo Garbin Jr. urges advertisers and credible news sources to help business sectors and the government by disseminating factual information about the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) vaccines through their platforms.
Callling on the Philippine Association of National Advertisers, the Advertising Board of the Philippines, the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, and all the holders of current legislative broadcasting franchises, Garbin recommends at least a 2-hour airtime for the COVID-19 materials every day.
The Chair of Committee on Constitutional Amendments also appealed to the Members of the Philippine Press Institute to “donate, allocate and prioritize at least two full pages worth of advertising column-inch space per week on their newspapers and magazines to join their broadcasting counterparts.”
Additionally, Garbin advised social networking sites including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Viber, and Google to be more vigilant when it comes to false information, hate speech, spam, and inauthentic online behavior.
According to a study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018, fake news tends to spread six times faster than factual news.
It also revealed that fake news can reach social media users faster.
With this, Garbin calls for the cooperation of social media personalities in combatting fake news.
He also deems it necessary that the COVID-19 materials be comprehensive considering that the country communicates in various languages.
“We ask all the vloggers, bloggers, and socmed influencers to adhere to media core principles and practices of truth-based, factual information-sharing especially about COVID-19 vaccines and the pandemic,” he said.
“We remind them of the necessity of communicating with the general public in Filipino, English, the regional languages, the dialects, standard sign language, and Braille, so that more of us can truly understand the messaging,” he added.
Photo Credit: Facebook/House of Representatives of the Philippines