PIA encourages Caraga information officers to join fight vs. disinformation
BUTUAN CITY (PIA)—The Philippine Information Agency (PIA) Caraga cascaded the government’s Maging Mapanuri campaign to more than 50 information officers from the different government offices in Caraga, during the Regional Information Officers Conference on July 2, held here.
With the theme, “Maging Mapanuri: Strengthening Public Trust Through Responsible and Resilient Communication,” Regional Head Venus L. Garcia of PIA Caraga welcomed the participants and recognized the power of the information officers in bridging and ensuring that accurate, relevant and timely information reaches the public and the grassroots communities. “This conference is more than just a meeting of the minds. It is a united front in our collective pursuit of truth, transparency and trust in the government.”
Maging Mapanuri Campaign
“The government launched the Maging Mapanuri Campaign to address the disinformation problem, one of the most pressing concerns of the country that creates confusion among the Filipinos,” said PIA Caraga Assistant Regional Head Renelle L. Escuadro, as resource person. “The campaign calls for an effective collaboration with the officers, who have access to most information on the programs of the government, to promote information literacy and ensure a safer, more informed and connected society.”
“In information literacy, we are more effective if we are specific in spotting the nature of the information and we refrain from using general terms,” she added.
She encouraged the participants to be vigilant and start appreciating the three types of information pollution: Misinformation is the unintentional spread of false or inaccurate information. It often arises from mistakes, misunderstandings, or misrepresentations and can occur in various forms, such as rumors.
Disinformation, on the other hand, involves the intentional spread of false information with the intent to deceive or manipulate. Tactics may include the creation of false stories, doctored images, and misleading narratives.
Mal-information consists of the dissemination of true information but with malicious intent, such as sharing private or confidential data without consent. It can lead to harm, invasion of privacy, or reputational damage.
Also, the resource speaker introduced the pivotal role of fact-checking to help address the rampant cases of disinformation in social media that affect the government. “Fact-checking is a significant task where one has to verify the accuracy of an information – a statement, photo or image and video and correct them if they fall as information pollution.”
She shared some online sites and tools for
fact-checking that are helpful in verifying statements, images or photos,
videos, among others.
“As information officers, we are more knowledgeable
on the programs of the government. Let us not tolerate the people who want to
divide the country through information pollution,” she underscored. “The Maging
Mapanuri Campaign is a call for information officers to help promote resilience
against information pollution in the digital age through your respective
platforms.”
In Caraga, PIA has sustained in bringing the Maging Mapanuri Campaign to the different sectors of the society. It started to encourage soldiers assigned in remote and far-flung areas of the region to fight disinformation. Recently, it motivated some student journalists of Butuan City to help the government communicators in ensuring that every Filipino receives accurate, timely and relevant information. (RLE, PIA Caraga)
