Leni Robredo on Polarization in the Philippines: 'There Is No Baseline of Facts Anymore'

Former vice president Leonor "Leni" Robredo continues to speak out against disinformation and polarization in the Philippines on the world stage. At the recent Democracy Forum, Robredo had even acknowledged some of the mistakes her camp made over the years, as well.

“We committed a lot of mistakes in responding to disinformation. It started really bad in 2016, when I won as Vice President of the Philippines. But the first mistake committed was that my initial stance at the time was, ‘they’re fake news, don’t dignify’. We thought it was the right thing to do,” she explained.

Organized by the Obama Foundation, The Democracy Forum invited speakers like Robredo, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones, and US Representative Ro Khanna to showcase "democracy in action." It invited leaders from around the world to discuss democracy's biggest concerns.

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Robredo, who had previously been selected Hauser Leader at the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School earlier this year, said she only started addressing and fact-checking fake news three years into her term as VP. By the time shre realized how bad things got, it had already been too late.

During her presidential campaign, Robredo had especially been plagued by disinformation, which even she admitted had been quite the challenge. Polarization, after all, can be quite the adversary, considering it's one of the first steps to sowing the political divide. "It’s the populist playbook, that you agitate the one party, enrage the other party, and when everything is so polarized, there is no baseline of facts anymore. There’s no chance for people to discuss and do a fair amount of discourse,” Robredo noted.

Robredo and her camp would go on to establish the non-government organization Angat Buhay Foundation after the elections. Here, she would continue the welfare programs she built under her vice presidential term.