Iglesia Ni Cristo crisis DUTERTE VIDEO INTERVIEW PROVES NEWS DISTORTION

By Manny Piñol

A video recording of an “ambush” interview by members of the media, including ABS-CBN’s Doris Bigornia, in the Manila Yatch Club during the weekend has become a solid proof of how the news about politicians supporting the Iglesia Ni Cristo was distorted by reporter Ryan Chua.

In the video recording documented by Roldan Gorgonio, a college professor who serves as close-in writer to Duterte, the 70-year-old Davao City Mayor, a lawyer and former public prosecutor, talked about the INC protest on EDSA in the context of the Constitutional Right to a peaceful assembly.

There was never an instance during the interview when Duterte expressed support for what the INC was protesting against and focused mainly on the Constitutional guarantees for the redress of grievance.

At one point, Duterte said that in Davao City, he does not require a permit to rally because “that’s purely ministerial” but added that to diffuse the situation, a dialogue must be initiated.

Duterte’s statement was entirely different from the statements of support to the INC’s protest rally expressed by Vice President Jejomar Binay and Senators Grace Poe, Francis Escudero and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

In a report made by ABS-CBN’s Ryan Chua, however, Duterte was lumped up in the list of politicians who he said expressed support for the INC rally.

The Ryan Chua report highlighted administration Presidential bet Manuel Roxas III as the only politician who stood up against the INC rally, an obvious image building for the Presidential hopeful who is in the cellar of the surveys for leading candidates for 2016.

Earlier, Peter Tiu Laviña, spokesman for Mayor Duterte, stressed that expressing support for the Constitutional Right to Peaceful Assembly is totally different from expressing support to what the INC was protesting against or fighting for.