'Gullible' columnist falls for satirical blog post

UPDATED 27MARCH Prominent Filipino newspaper columnist Carmen Navarro Pedrosa became a prime example of what she ranted about. Warning Filipino readers not to be gullible, she then proceeded to unwittingly cite fake statistics from a satirical blog. In her From A Distance column in the March 26 issue of The Philippine Star, Pedrosa expressed concern over the purported findings of a Harvard University study, which claimed that Filipinos are "the most gullible people in the world." 'A serious allegation' "This is a serious allegation we should not ignore... we better take it seriously," she said. The problem is that the supposed Harvard study — including its "content analyses of over 500,000 historical documents from 300 different societies" by the "Harvard Institute of Socio-Political Progression (HIS-PP)"— is entirely fictitious, the work of recently founded satirical blog MosquitoPress.net. Apparently, the satirical nature of the post was lost on Pedrosa, who concluded her piece by saying, "We are gullible because we are not able or do not question information. We prefer to believe what other persons tell us." Beside the point However, in the March 27 edition of her column, Pedrosa said that this was beside the point. "Whether or not there was such a study by Harvard is less the point than whether it is true that Filipinos are gullible most of the time. This gullibility is especially harmful during elections. The Mosquito Press (according to Wikipedia, the name assumed by Philippine Collegian during martial law) has thought of a clever way to teach Filipinos not to be gullible so I put it up as the title of my column yesterday," she wrote.

A screengrab of the March 26, 2011, edition of Carmen Pedrosa's column, From A Distance.

The Mosquito Press In its Help page, the Mosquito Press clearly states that it is "a satirical publication (that) uses invented names in all its stories, except in cases where public figures are being satirized. Any other use of real names is accidental and coincidental." Mosquito Press has been known to poke fun at Philippine politics and current events, with satirical posts written with the equivalent of a straight face, in the same vein as The Onion and Weekly World News. The satirical site has been operating under the radar for just over a month, its first entry dated February 21, and has startled unsuspecting readers and journalists alike with its in-your-face stories. Other posts Mosquito Press' recent posts include the Ligot Family Response Generator —"an innovative tool to help senators question former comptroller Jacinto Ligot, and his wife, Erlinda" — and the Ping Lacson Finder, which shows how Sen. Ping Lacson has been spending his time in hiding, including surfing in Siargao. Pedrosa is a veteran journalist and political analyst in the Philippines where, in 1969, she published a controversial book on the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos' wife, entitled, The Untold Story of Imelda Marcos. — JV/HS, GMA News