Veteran columnist Ramon Tulfo has publicly admitted that he was given false information about former Speaker Martin Romualdez and failed to verify it before publishing the report.
In a statement, Tulfo described the incident as one of the most embarrassing and humiliating experiences of his journalism career, saying he was “nakuryente,” a term used when a reporter is fed incorrect information and accepts it as fact.
Tulfo acknowledged that he passed the unverified report on to his readers, who trusted his account. The story, which later went viral, claimed that Romualdez was able to secretly leave and return to jail with the help of an ambulance and strategically timed power outages.
However, Tulfo said subsequent facts showed that no such incident took place and that the report was entirely false.
“I goofed. No excuses,” Tulfo said, admitting that he should have thoroughly checked and cross-checked the information before making it public. # (RRN)
