One of the country’s largest news media network, ABS-CBN News apologized on Saturday afternoon to students of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) after its student council demanded it to make up for an erroneous report on Vice President Jejomar Binay’s appearance in the Laguna campus.
The open letter of the UPLB students was the main reason why the hashtag #ABSCBNSaySorryTOUPLB trend on social networking site Twitter on Saturday. ABS-CBN already apologized to the students of UPLB as they released the following statement:
“ABS-CBN News expresses its sincerest apologies to the students of UP Los Baños for the errors committed by ABS-CBNnews.com in 2 articles about the forum of UP Los Baños students with Vice President Jejomar Binay last September 15,” the network said in a statement.
ABS-CBN clarified that one of its writers misheard the word “sample” as “trapo” or traditional politicians, a negative term describing people in government or running for government.
The UPLB Student Council issued an open letter to ABS-CBN via Twitter as they denied that they heckled VP Binay even he started his speech during a forum held in the campus last September 15.
According to the student council’s open letter, they accused ABS-CBN of “unethical Journalism,” which has “inflicted a negative perception on UPLB students, with misinformed netizens and readers treating and tagging UPLB students as ‘unmannered,’ and of ‘low breeding.’”
