Scammers

Even before the pandemic lockdowns, media colleagues have been telling me about certain persons presenting themselves as the editor-in-chief of The Philippine STAR.

I didn’t believe anyone would be so pathetic, until I actually watched a TV host interviewing a man identified on the show as The Philippine STAR editor-in-chief. A friend was channel surfing and had chanced upon the show, and alerted me.

I didn’t know either the host or the guest and I thought shows that don’t bother to vet their guests’ credentials won’t last. I don’t know if the show survived the pandemic.

What survived was the misrepresentation, by a woman this time. Maybe I should be flattered that someone finds it necessary to pretend that she has my job title. But this chronic misrepresentation is creating confusion in the public mind.

Fortunately, I have colleagues who have reported the incidents of unethical misrepresentation to me, including recent ones.

It got me thinking how easy it is to carry out such deceptions in these days when people do their identity vetting through LinkedIn and Facebook, where people can claim anything about themselves without any independent verification.

The ease of creating false credentials on social media also, fortunately, makes it easy for such deceptions to be caught.

So I’m repeating my warning about any scammer posing as the editor-in-chief of The Philippine STAR. Maybe they need a psychiatrist, or a criminal indictment.

In our print edition, you can easily verify such claims in the staff box on this page. Online, check out this link, which is regularly updated by our social media team: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philippine_Star

*      *      *

A newspaper’s staff box is not just a space filler in the opinion section. Every name, every job designation, even the positioning in the box needs approval by the top management.

This is because the staff box shows the levels of accountability to the public within the newspaper. A newspaper is a public trust. In case someone feels aggrieved by what the person deems to be irresponsible, malicious, unfair, inaccurate, biased or scurrilous commentary or reporting by The Philippine STAR, we are the ones – and I in particular, being the editor-in-chief – who can be held legally liable.

The last flight I took before the pandemic lockdowns in March 2020 was to the boondocks, literally, to attend a court hearing for a libel complaint filed by a politician influential in that area against our newspaper. It’s my 35th or 36th libel suit (I’m starting to lose count) and it remains unresolved.

We are bound by journalistic ethics, on pain of going to prison, paying hefty fines and losing readers’ trust. When we make mistakes, which inadvertently happens despite our best efforts to avoid them, we do our best to correct the errors.

It’s an accountability to news consumers that you won’t get from a lot of stuff on social media. Journalism is a specialized discipline that requires a certain set of skills. Being able to tweet and retweet information or make commentaries on LinkedIn and Facebook don’t make one a journalist.

In addition to the staff box, my name and regularly updated photo are affixed to my regular opinion pieces on this page, for accountability.

There was initial resistance from some of our columnists to the use of their photographs for these opinion essays. They were worried that it would make them easy targets for those who deal with unfavorable commentary through murder. I thought such risks go with the job in this country that is among the most dangerous places in the world for journalists.

I am also on TV from Monday to Friday, on One News’ “The Chiefs” on Cignal TV. My identity and job designation can be easily verified.

COVID trauma turned me into a recluse, which probably facilitated pretenses that someone else has my job title. I now worry that this is being used for questionable activities that could get me and The Philippine STAR into all sorts of trouble.

So I’m writing this cautionary piece. Those who want reliable information should back their reliance on social media with investments in mainstream media, including print. There’s a reason why important business contracts and formal agreements continue to be printed and signed on paper, even in the digital age.

At P25 a day for information recorded permanently in black and white, a newspaper is a good investment, and provides protection from scammers.

*      *      *

Digital technology has facilitated all sorts of deception. Most of us (myself included) are using the technology with low digital literacy, making us vulnerable to all sorts of scams.

These days even menus in some restaurants are no longer presented on paper – the easier I guess to change the items and prices. But it was annoying to scan the menu on a tablet when I had lunch the other day in a hotel. It will surely be a turnoff to many elderly seniors who don’t use computers.

Technology can be as unreliable as the information you read on LinkedIn. Last week the ATM of another bank swallowed my card, saying it had been reported lost or stolen (I didn’t file any such report). My card was retrieved only yesterday, when the cash in the ATM was topped up for payday.

In this season of cheer, online scammers are using bogus promos and raffles to rope in victims. Banks, commercial establishments and even the Philippine National Police have issued warnings about such digital scams.

The banks are fighting back. BDO, which was hit by a hacking problem with teachers among the victims, has added several layers of security to its digital banking processes. BDO ATM cards also have facial and fingerprint recognition features.

Maybe I will ask the techies if there’s an app providing such biometric identification features, so any hustler pretending to have my job title can be easily exposed.