City councilor slams Philippine Star over news report

Ocampo in his privileged speech on Tuesday’s (July 16) regular session of the 20th Davao City Council said this is irresponsible reporting. As a former member of the media, facts should be double checked before publishing or airing news stories, he said.

Davao City is not Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur and Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur is not Davao City, according to Ocampo.

Recently both the mainstream and multimedia reported stories of the acquisition of fake birth certificates given to  200 Chinese Nationals purposely to acquire documents processed by the Philippine government such as passports and other legal documents.

Following said reports, authorities, particularly the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) traced the source of the fake documents to the Municipal Local Registry of Sta. Cruz p, Davao del Sur.

Currently, the NBI is conducting a thorough investigation about the said acquisition of fake birth certificates in said municipality.

Ocampo was surprised upon reading an article published on July 15 with thePhilippine Star written by Delon Porcalla with reports from Pia Lee Brago and Evelyn Macarian entitled Lawmakers seek Inquiry into Fake Philippine Passports.

The story talks about how fake birth certificates were allegedly being used by Chinese Nationals to acquire Philippine passports.

“What was striking is, at the beginning of the article, instead of identifying Sta. Cruz, Davao del Sur as the source of the alleged fake birth certificates, it was made to appear that Davao City was the source of such fake documents,” Ocampo said.

Ocampo was supposed to pass a resolution demanding Philippine Star to rectify its reports, however, the said article was corrected afternoon of July 16.

He said, “damage has been done.” The people who have read the story already had the impression that the fake documents came from Davao city. 

“The report, though corrected, has a damaging effect on the credibility of our people in local government who have  been proven to be credible, efficient, strict, operating with high standards and law abiding,” Ocampo further said.

“I hope next time any reports that may damage the credibility of any government institution, especially the Local Government of Davao, reporters should do their facts check and due diligence in making sure the matters that are being reported are factual, accurate, just and fair,” he said.