Filipino broadcaster Ramon T. Tulfo, Jr. on Thursday retracted allegations that former House Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez had been secretly leaving his detention facility, saying the claims were contradicted by the jail superintendent's testimony.

The camp of Mr. Romualdez, through legal counsel and spokesman Abdiel Dan Elijah “Ade” S. Fajardo, welcomed the retraction, saying Mr. Tulfo acknowledged that he had received incorrect information from a source and failed to verify it before sharing the allegations with the public.

“We welcome Mr. Ramon Tulfo's public acknowledgment that the allegations he circulated concerning former Speaker Ferdinand Martin G. Romualdez's supposed unauthorized movements outside his detention facility were false,” Mr. Fajardo said in a statement.

In a Nov. 3 Facebook post, Mr. Tulfo claimed that Mr. Romualdez had been secretly leaving and returning to the New Quezon City Jail through a backdoor staircase leading to a waiting ambulance, allegedly while the jail warden cut electricity to prevent security cameras from recording his movements. The broadcaster later acknowledged the information was erroneous, describing the allegations as fiction.

Mr. Fajardo also cited the testimony of Jail Superintendent Maria Lourdes Pacion, who denied that Mr. Romualdez had been leaving the facility or using an ambulance or other vehicle for unauthorized trips.

The retraction followed a Nov. 4 demand letter from the law firm Solis Medina Fajardo & Malilong, which directed Mr. Tulfo to stop repeating the allegations and to remove or correct his original post with a prominent clarification. The letter also warned of possible legal action should the claims be republished — making the fate of the original post, and whether the threatened action follows, the immediate developments to watch.

The demand letter likewise cited the Supreme Court ruling in Tulfo v. People, which addressed journalists' responsibility to verify information from sources, present the other side, and promptly correct substantive errors.

Mr. Fajardo said the incident demonstrated the damage that unverified allegations can cause, particularly when they concern individuals involved in ongoing judicial proceedings. The sequence — from a single social media post to a demand letter anchored in Supreme Court precedent to a public retraction — underscored how quickly unverified claims about figures in active court cases can draw formal legal responses.

“A lie, when repeatedly spread, can look like the truth. But in the end, the truth must still prevail,” Mr. Fajardo said in Filipino.

He added that Mr. Romualdez remained under lawful detention and continued to respect the authority of the court and the rules of the detention facility. — Pexcel John Bacon

Source: BusinessWorld