(Eagle News) — The chairman of the Manila Times denied on Friday, March 8, that President Rodrigo Duterte had a hand in the “firing” of newspaper columnist former Senator Francisco Tatad.
“Erstwhile columnist Mr. Francisco S. Tatad lied when he said he was fired from The Manila Times upon instructions from President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. I swear on the graves of my parents that no such thing ever happened,” Dante Ang said in a piece published in the paper.
According to Ang, “neither the President nor any of his close advisers called” him to “terminate Tatad’s services with the paper.”
He said “in the few times” he met with the President, “not once had he bothered mentioning to me Mr. Tatad’s name or referred to any of his excoriating articles at all.”
“I challenge Mr. Tatad that we both undergo a lie detector test anywhere, anytime as he pleases to determine once and for all who between the two of us is lying on this matter,” Ang said.
Addressing allegations Tatad was fired, Ang said he never fired Tatad in the first place but “merely obliged him.”
He said he had a meeting with Tatad on Friday afternoon where the former senator said “I do not want to put The Manila Times in a compromised position.”
“What am I to do? Beg him to stay? If he was bluffing, woe to him, I accepted his bluff. And so I said, “Write your last column.” Maybe he was soliciting my sympathy,” Ang said.
Press freedom
Ang also slammed Tatad for his accusations The Manila Times was suppressing press freedom when it refused to publish what was supposed to be the former senator’s last article for the paper.
According to Ang, that piece that “loosely accused” him of acting as consultant to the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office and the Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. was merely “fake news” and “hate news,” and did not pass the test of the canons of journalism as, among others, the former senator did not do the basic, which was to “call the source for confirmation” of the story.
“No editor with a sound mind would publish an article from one of his columnists that maligns the paper and its owners with lies, innuendos, malice and much more….He bemoans the ‘killing’ of his last article and conflates it with the suppression of press freedom, conveniently forgetting that even as a columnist, his comments must be based on facts just the same, to come up with a fair and objective opinion,” Ang said.
Ang added that save for that story, all of Tatad’s “excoriating articles” against the President saw print on the paper.
He mentioned Tatad’s article on Duterte supposedly undergoing the knife for a kidney transplant, a story that the Palace has denied.
“Mr. Tatad should have used critical thinking and asked himself if it was possible for a man 73 years old, like the President, to be up and about 14 days after such procedure, moving around the country, meeting various constituencies for hours on end, before even contemplating to write the story. To this day, Mr. Tatad insists that President Duterte, indeed, had a kidney transplant during the 14-day period when the President withdrew from the public only because, the President has not bothered to deny it,” Ang said.
“It is there for all to see. Mr. Tatad’s false narratives about the President’s alleged kidney transplant and much more were published in the Times without any editor calling his attention to the flawed, if malicious, articles. We have allowed him to write his opinion pieces, inaccuracies notwithstanding, save for his “Farewell” article, out of respect to him. I dare Mr. Tatad to say otherwise,” Ang added.