Noynoy Aquino communications team fields fake letters to editor - Tiglao

According to Inquirer.net columnist Rigoberto Tiglao in his recent column, Malacañang had been fielding fake letters-to-the-editor to malign critics of the the administration of President Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III.

Mr. Aquino’s PR operatives have hijacked young people’s Facebook names and fabricated e-mail addresses to use as authors of these spurious letters. These bogus e-mail addresses are mostly Yahoo or Hotmail addresses, as these services enable their users ($20 yearly for Yahoo Plus) to use so-called “disposable e-mail addresses” which conceal the senders’ identities.

Tiglao demonstrated how easy it is to spot fake or hijacked identities being used for such sort of black propaganda...

There were nine published letters to the editor bad-mouthing Doronila. Seven are fictitious. There have been 12 letters which were vicious in maligning Corona, and expect more as the trial resumes in May. Google the authors, you get zero results. They don’t exist. Any veteran editor would also easily discern that these letters’ writing style is the same, with certain editorial tics and all with a black-and-white ethos and a vitriolic tone.

The color yellow is quite appropriate for Aquino’s propagandists who hide behind pseudonyms when attacking those they dare not cross. A “Norman Yanus” in a letter blasted Sen. Miriam Santiago and the Iglesia ni Cristo for allegedly supporting Corona. A Google search shows no “Norman Yanus” existing anywhere in the world.

Messages were e-mailed to the addresses which these bogus writers gave this paper. Either there were no replies at all, or the cyber postmaster replied that the e-mail address was “disabled.”

The Malacañang of President Noynoy Aquino has a long history of making use of unscrupulous practices in its public relations efforts. Recall an even bigger outrage perpetrated by the Yellow Forces of the Aquino-Cojuangco feudal clan back when the smoke from the infamy of the 2010 presidential elections was just clearing when the privately-owned Facebook.com/Noynoy.Aquino page (owned by Califorinia-based Ben Totanes and Betty Abrantes, but now defunct) that at the time claimed 1.5 million “fans” (now known as “likes”) was seemingly hijacked by Malacañang. The page was allegedly shut down by Facebook admins (some say under pressure from the Philippine Government) and its subscribers apparently re-subscribed into the now “official” Noynoy Facebook page at Facebook.com/PresidentNoy…

According to AllFacebook.com, the number of “likes” on the fan page of the new PresidentNoy Facebook page suddenly jumped in number from about 100,000 as of the 8th of November to almost 1.6 million as of the 11th of November [2010].

The PresidentNoy Facebook page now boasts about 2.2 million “likes” which, suffice to say does not necessarily mean that the President has that number of supporters on Facebook. Unlike Noynoyist netizens, online activists critical of the President are not ones to shy away from heated debate. As such, many of them subscribe to pro-Aquino forums and online communities in order to directly engage in healthy discussion with their pro-Noynoy counterparts. Indeed, it is well known in the online political community that admins of the PresidentNoy Facebook page have had to disable commenting on the site in many instances when comments critical of the president being posted there got “out of hand”.

Tiglao concludes...

Never before has any administration undertaken such organized, unethical campaign to subvert the press and even democracy itself, through sham letters to the editors, a most crooked PR tactic. So much for tuwid na daan ethics.