Palace to create a “social media policy” for bloggers who want to cover presidential events

Do bloggers have a place in Malacañang? Communications Secretary Martin Andanar seems to think so.

Bloggers and social media organizations may soon find themselves covering presidential events as the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) is currently crafting a “social media policy” which “will allow social media publishers to be recognized as legitimate sources of information, and provide a system of accreditation.”

According to Andanar, this is a way for the current administration to thank bloggers for the online buzz they’ve helped create during campaign season, Rappler reports.

He added that the popularity of some pro-Duterte bloggers is something that we have to “embrace” and “control”

PCOO invited members of the mainstream media, bloggers, public relations personalities, students, academics and even those in the legal profession to a “Social Media Policy Town Hall”, which aims to design a framework that is “that is acceptable to all concerned.”

Some bloggers have called the mainstream media “presstitutes” for supposedly being corrupt and biased.

“If the bloggers could inform Filipinos more accurately, if the bloggers could connect and communicate better to the people the statements of the President, and if the inclusion of the bloggers in the MPC could lead for the press to evolve – then this is a change that must happen,” said sexy-star-turned-political-blogger Mocha Uson on her column in Philippine Star.

On the other hand, (CMFR) trustee Vergel Santos pointed out the danger in accrediting bloggers.

“Accrediting bloggers would encourage a blurring of the distinction between legitimate journalism and pseudo-journalism – of which blogging happens to be today’s most typical example,” Santos had said in an article by Rappler.