Many, many online sites have been put up by political spin doctors in order to smear rival candidates.

Which is one reason why I am very careful not to immediately believe short video clips posted as proof of wrongdoing. I have made it a rule for myself to see the entire video clip first before making a conclusion.

In fact, that is what I did with the Rodrigo Duterte video clips on his “rape” story.

A short clip was posted last night immediately after the presidential debates. It claimed that ABS-CBN and perhaps Karen Davila leaked questions in advance to Mar Roxas. Which is why he came well-prepared.

In other words, Mar Roxas cheated, the unknown writer claimed. Because how else could the one typing the heads for ABS-CBN know what Mar Roxas was about to say if he or she did not have Mar Roxas’ replies in advance.

Look at this

The allegation of cheating seems highly believable if you only listen to this short video clip.

But, it turns out, the video clip was edited to make it appear that Roxas and ABS-CBN were in cahoots.

Because the official transcript of the debate shows the clip referred only to the second time that Roxas had mentioned “malalaking interes”.

Karen Davila: Pero kaya niyo bang lahat na banggain ang mga malalaking department store, malalaking mall? Thirty seconds Secretary Roxas.

Sec. Mar Roxas: Alam mo, Karen, sa kasaysayan ko, binangga ko mga malalaking interes. Pharmaceutical industry, cheaper medicine law, banking industry at insurance industry, yung pre-need law natin. So sa aking karanasan, binabangga ko ang mga malalaking interes kung ito ay para sa kapakanan ng ordinaryong Pilipino. Wala akong problema doon.

Could the unknown writer have made a mistake and only heard the second time that Roxas had said those words?

Naaah.

It was clear the post was meant to deceive, provoke and anger a lot of people. Because the first part of Roxas’ sentence was cut away, precisely to give that impression of cheating. You could see the editing was crudely done because the clip did not start at the beginning of the sentence.

It’s the same thing that the Roxas critics did to him in that edited voice clip of his altercation with Tacloban city Mayor Alfred Romualdez. They removed sections that would have explained his very controversial statement which mentioned the words “Romualdez” and “Aquino”.

Editor's note: Raissa's blog (raissarobles.com) went down (database connection error) after she posted this article on her blog. It was still not accessible as of posting.

(Disclaimer: The views of the author are her own and not necessarily the views of ABS-CBN Corp.)