Mr @BobiTiglao's email to "vice president" @LeniRobredo regarding her "purveyor of fake news" allegations

Ms. Maria Leonor Robredo
Vice President
Republic of the Philippines

CC: My Facebook Timeline

Dear Madame Vice President, 

I abhor fake news as much as  you also seem to be, based on your  recent tweet.

Sadly, I continue to get Facebook posts alleging your affair with Congressman Jorge (“Bolet”) Banal. If these are fake news , I would like to expose these  as such.

However, I haven’t received any such denial from you nor from Congressman Banal, for me to write that this is a fake news. 

I hope you can deny it as soon as possible so I could bury this issue finally  and request FB fact-checkers to delete such falsehoods.

I requested our editor-in-chief several days back  to assign a reporter to ask you this question, as this really of gathering information is the work of a reporter and not of  an opinion columnist. 

For some reason though,  it seems my request had been ignored. Or probably our reporter was too faint of heart to do that.

This is a follow-up of my last email of April 24  addressed to your office, which you seem to have acknowledged receiving in your recent tweet—  the one with the curious “bring-it-on”  challenge, which I find puzzling. 

As perplexing though is instead of a confirm-or-deny reply, you just accused me of being a "purveyor of fake news."

One journalistic protocol, usually though when a reporter asks a subject in person, is that the absence of a comment is taken as a confirmation.

If you prefer that Cong. Banal responds to my query, can you please send me his email.

Rest assured, I am merely doing my job as a journalist, which is to provide our readers  the most accurate information on their leaders.  In governance, as they say, the "personal is political.”

For example, I remember that one of your  blogger- fan had asked then President Ramos in a big assembly: “What is Baby Arenas in your life? ”  He answered “someone special” and then moved on to an entirely different topic. I admired him for that.   Maybe you can get an idea from FVR’s response.

Please help me settle this issue, so I can move on to other more important issues.

Respectfully, 

Rigoberto Tiglao
Columnist, Manila Times
(As posted on Facebook)