MANILA — The House Tri Committee investigating the spread of misinformation and disinformation in the country is set to resume its hearing on Tuesday. 

Two congressmen said the tri-comm may issue subpoenas if vloggers, who were already subjects of show cause orders, again skip the tri-comm hearing without a valid reason.

“If there’s no valid reason for their absence again this time… baka i-subpoena na sila,” House Assistant Majority Leader and Lanao del Sur 1st District Representative Zia Alonto Adiong warned.

“The invited guests, who were supposed to appear in the last committee hearings, are very active in the online discourse. And we hope that we can get some inputs that they might like to share to the committee so that we can formulate a much enabling law that would really be reflective of the need to regulate itong open space and the internet,” he explained.

House to begin probe on fake news, disinformation; at least 40 social media personalities invited

"We're not actually running after these vloggers. We just hope that we can give them the proper venue where they can actually share their inputs and so that we can also propose a legislation in order to regulate, to counter the propagation of this, hindi mo ma-police na paglaganap ng malinformation, disinformation,” Adiong noted.

“There would be other remedies later on like subpoena, should they choose not to attend… No one can agree naman po na good for the country ang fake news. Relying on such tactics po talagang it's to no benefit to anyone,” 1-RIDER Party List Representative Rodge Gutierrez, for his part, said.

House issues show cause orders vs vloggers who skipped 'fake news' probe

He stressed the importance of the hearing amid alleged involvement of a foreign entity backing misinformation on the West Philippine Sea.

“There is allegedly a link between Chinese backing of misinformation in the West Philippine Sea and political campaigns for certain individuals in the country. So I think doon pa lang very important," he said.

"I think another issue that we have to discuss thoroughly sa Tricom is yung commercialization po ng bloggers,” Gutierrez added.

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