MANILA, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles, Manila Bureau) – First, it was Rappler that made a big hullabaloo about the fact that a political blog by a non-journalist entertainer has generated more social media engagement and following than its Maria Ressa-owned and foreign-funded news outlet.

Rappler spent a lot of staff time and content space “analyzing” why Mocha Uson’s Facebook blog is significantly more popular.  It went to the extent of blaming Facebook’s algorithms to justify the fact it is less read and followed by Filipino netizens.

Now, another sinking news media, GMA news,  is abandoning its very core purpose of reporting on news-worthy (not to mention fair and accurate) developments in the Philippines by harnessing its resources to police the Internet.  It recently launched what it called “Hindi Tama,” which supposedly is out to call the public’s attention on “fake” or “inaccurate” news.

It is a sad state of Philippine news media when “legitimate” news outlets like GMA and Rappler would rather spend their time attacking Internet information sources that they feel make them totally irrelevant and insignificant. 

Expect all the other biased news media like ABS-CBN and Inquirer to follow suit.

Long live citizen media!