Communications Undersecretary Lorraine Badoy got roasted at a news program after she resorted to make accusations against an organization rather than address the topic of the program.
It was part of an episode of One News’ “The Chiefs,” wherein Rosario Guzman, the executive director for think tank Ibon Foundation and Badoy were invited to discuss the numbers behind Malacañang’s “Duterte Legacy” campaign.
Duterte Legacy, launched last January 17, was initiated by the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) to show the President Rodrigo Duterte’s accomplishments halfway through his term.
Ibon Foundation fact-checked and contextualized the figures the government reported and disputed some of its key points. These included the number of jobs generated and the number of Filipinos lifted out of poverty.
Guzman shared these findings with The Chief hosts Ed Lingao, Roby Alampay and Amy Pamintuan.
When the communications official was given the chance to respond, Badoy accused the research group as a front of Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army.
“Ibon is an above-ground organization of the CPP-NPA-NDF movement unless you’d like to deny that. There’s nothing that will ever come out that’s good about this government or any government from Ibon Foundation,” she said.
Lingao later corrected her that both Ibon and the communist coalition are legal given the repeal of the anti-subversion law.
However, she went on and claimed that the end goal of these organizations is “to overthrow governments.”
“You’ve been around 41 years but the CPP-NPA had been around for 51 years. And the end goal has always been to overthrow governments so nothing will come out of that you’ve ousted two presidents,” Badoy said.
When Badoy and Guzman started to have a heated exchange, Lingao and Alampay impelled Badoy to focus on the agenda of the program.
“We wanted a discussion, as you yourself said, on the Duterte Legacy. What Ed is basically saying is let’s get this back on track. Because we will not allow this show to be highjacked to a different topic,” Alampay said.
Clips of this segment soon reached local Twitter. Twitter user @KasamangChad poked fun at Badoy’s behavior on the episode.
WATCH: PCOO Usec Lorraine Badoy, sinabon ng mga host ng #TheChiefs dahil imbis na sagutin ang rebuttal ng @IBONFoundation, puro panreredtag ang binubula ng bibig nito.
Bonus: Abangan yung last frame, pang meme material yung fezlak ni ghorl 😂
Full vid:https://t.co/NFkyyJceCV pic.twitter.com/YYrKs4aEOm
— Chad Booc 🌄 (@KasamangChad) January 28, 2020
Badoy’s relative Gang Badoy-Capati, a former TV host, also expressed disappointment over her kin’s behavior.
“Oh wow, that was painful to watch,” Capati said on Twitter.
Fact-checks on Duterte Legacy
Ibon Foundation’s report focused on the macroeconomic figures including the number of jobs generated and that of the Filipinos uplifted from poverty.
The report titled “Real Duterte Legacy” covered only information for 2019. Data were sourced from the Philippine Statistics Authority, Bureau of the Treasury, Philhealth, Philippine Institute for Development Studies and Save our Schools Network.
"The Philippine economy is in worse shape because of the unreformed neoliberal policies of the Duterte administration."…
Posted by IBON Foundation on Thursday, January 23, 2020
Former Financial Times researcher Prinz Magtulis noted that some of the Duterte Legacy numbers are not recent as claimed.
“Latest jobless data in the report, for instance, were as of Oct. 2019. Poverty figures are released every three years and latest one was as of 2018. So ‘as of Jan. 9, 2020’ misleads,” Magtulis said in a Twitter thread.
Some of the details are also vague, such as airport renovations mainly backed by public funds, the number of “decent housing” built, and the measurements of infrastructures attributed to Duterte.
The Duterte administration dangles legacy numbers during his first three and a half years. But there seems to be some problem on the numbers and how they were presented. pic.twitter.com/3atyCLSLSh
— Prinz Magtulis 프린즈 (@prinzmagtulis) January 17, 2020
Critics of the chief executive previously listed several policies that can run counter to the “legacy” the administration wants to present. The bloody “Oplan Tokhang” or police-led anti-drug operations that led to the deaths of thousands of drug accused.
A 2019 report from the Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, found the country’s human rights crisis “deepened” under Duterte’s governance.
Others cited Duterte’s soft stance over China’s construction and military activities in waters within the Philippines’ jurisdiction in the West Philippine Sea.
