Du30 spox Sec. Abella vowed to investigate trolling against young women, students, critics of Duterte at the AMIC natl conference Friday morning
President Duterte’s official spokesperson Sec. Ernie Abella vowed “to look into” the phenomenon of trolling when informed by a University faculty that the violent language of Duterte has been alarmingly extended by his supporters online with the use of death threats, rape threats, criminally violent and profane language against young women, students, and other ordinary citizens critical of Duterte’s policies including the Marcos burial at the Heroes’ Cemetery.
              These were among the points raised by some of the delegates during the national conference of the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre Friday morning, and the launch of its national headquarters, which was formerly based in Singapore.
                AMIC keynote speaker Secretary Abella clarified that threatening women and students online was not state policy, that it was not part of his work and he would inquire into it, and relay the concern to his colleagues.
       Guest speaker seasoned PR practitioner Bong Osorio, in  response to a follow-up query from a reporter, said he was aware of the private corporate practice of deploying “corporate trolls” against competitors, which consisted of sub-contracting the trolling to “call-center agents” in large numbers, outside the company, with the job of putting down the competitor online. He said however that he had no first-hand knowledge of Malacañang practices and was speaking only from what he had observed of other business companies.
(for details of the animated and substantive discussion, please contact the AMIC national headquarters at the Philippine Women’s University on Taft Avenue, Manila).
( the proverbial selfies, groufies, and picture-taking took place post-powwow)