The Office of Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has launched a fact-checking website called “True Leila Project” designed to combat the relentless spread of false content and misleading information against her across the Internet.
De Lima said the website, trueleilaproject.com, will become a one-stop destination for the Filipino populace, including journalists and researchers, to confirm the veracity of the malicious information and false narratives peddled against her by malevolent forces.
“It’s difficult to go against a well-funded and well-orchestrated network of people whose obsession is to manufacture and disseminate fake news and outright lies through fake accounts and pages against me,” she said.
“But truth on my side, I’m confident that these evil forces who continue to poison the public’s minds with their lies will be exposed and stopped. We just cannot afford to be defeated by our own inaction against their falsehoods,” she added.
According to the Senator, the “True Leila Project” seeks to address and counter the fake news directed against her as well as for the public to know the ‘true Senator Leila’ – who, aside from being a lawyer and a lawmaker, is also a mother and a staunch advocate for human rights, social justice and democracy.
The “True Leila Project” is a humble initiative dedicated primarily to combat the fake news directed against De Lima, who has been continually subjected to fake news stories by political manipulators who are hell bent to ruin her reputation.
This fact-checking website is also dedicated not only in debunking fake news but also featuring some writings disproving the false narrative against the Senator and those highlighting her statements on issues related to disinformation, respectively.
Several news and feature articles have been uploaded discussing some of the most controversial news against De Lima, including the alleged concert she had inside the New Bilibid Prison (NBP) and her purported admission that she is a protector of drug lords.
“These are all fake claims and outright lies. Sadly, some people were led to believe that they were true because of the government’s propaganda machineries and their paid trolls,” said De Lima, the first prominent political prisoner under the Duterte administration.
No matter the challenges, the lady Senator from Bicol vowed to never let sinister political operatives and paid trolls to continue manipulating reality, saying, “we must fight them, and the best way to fight them is to slap them with the truth.”
De Lima, a prisoner of conscience who will be marking her 1,000th day of unjust detention this Nov. 20, has systematically been targeted by fake news peddlers aiming to silence her from calling out the excesses of the administration in its all-out war on drugs and tarnish her reputation as a Senator of the Republic.