ABS-CBN APOLOGIZES TO UPLB

Last week, Vice President Jejomar Binay agreed to speak in front of the students of University of the Philippines Los Banos about political transparency and social transformation in the Philippines. Things got more interesting during the open forum where the students did not hesitate to ask questions to the presidentiable, as seen in this video from Rappler's YouTube Channel :

Apparently, at the start of the discussion, students shouted "Sample! Sample!" since this portion came after an intermission number. ABS-CBN reported in its website that the students shouted "Trapo! Trapo!" which means traditional politician in local political lingo. This prompted some netizens to react negatively to the students of UPLB.

The UPLB University Student Council released in its Facebook page an open letter to the news agency, demanded a public apology by wrongly accussing the studentry of such action :

I really applaud this act of UPLB USC for standing for the students against irresponsible journalism. This prompted students and alumni of the university to take the fight to social media, sharing the post more than 7,000 times.

The hashtag #ABSCBNSaySorryToUPLB trended in Twitter in the afternoon as well, just behind the hashtags used by Eat Bulaga and It's Showtime.

After several hours, ABS-CBN News posted an apology in its website and shared it in its Twitter account:

.@ABSCBNNews apologizes over mistake on UP Los Baños report http://t.co/LSlhPhyea2 pic.twitter.com/Hdhs1gvtBu

— ABS-CBN News (@ABSCBNNews) September 19, 2015

In its website, the following statement was posted :

I also applaud ABS-CBN News for giving the apology. I really hope that this incident has taught all news sites to gear towards responsible and accurate journalism.