Several YouTube videos are erroneously claiming that former president Rodrigo Duterte is filing a case to have Batangas Rep. Gerville Luistro’s license to practice law cancelled.
At least three YouTube channels spread the untrue claim about a month ago but it continues to circulate. One of the videos bore the headline:
“Matapos MAGLABAS ng UNVALIDATED Reports | Pres. DUTERTE SASAMPAHAN NA ng DISBARMENT CASE si LUISTRO?! (After presenting unvalidated reports, President Duterte is filing a disbarment case against Luistro?!)”
The video narrators are alleging that the questions asked by Luistro during the Nov. 13 House Quad Committee hearing on the drug war killings during the Duterte administration prompted the filing of the case.
This is false. Duterte has not announced any intention to disbar Luistro because of her questioning nor are there any news reports about the filing of such a case.
The untrue claim came out after SAGIP Party-list Rep. Rodante Marcoleta – a supporter of the former president – made a flip comment that Luistro can potentially be disbarred for bringing up the Lascañas Affidavit during the House quad committee hearing, which he claimed was never authenticated or validated.
(Read Lascañas says Duterte paid him using Davao City’s ‘ghost’ employees)
During the quad committee hearing which lasted 13 hours, Luistro managed to squeeze out an “extrajudicial confession of guilt” from Duterte after the former president took responsibility for his bloody drug war.
In the same hearing, Luistro said that without Duterte’s order and reward for drug crimes being solved, the police would not have resorted to killing drug-related suspects.
YouTube channels Showbiz Fanaticz (created on Nov. 9, 2017), PINAS NEWS HEADLINES (July 24, 2017) and JDB’s Comments PRO FILIPINO (March 22, 2017) published the videos with the wrong claim, collectively garnering over 204,000 views and 7,500 online interactions.
