Puan Calls for Upholding Ethics: Criticism Must Be Delivered Politely

DPR Speaker Puan Maharani spoke on the importance of upholding ethics when delivering criticism. Puan urged everyone to maintain ethics whenever providing criticism.

“The law must be enforced as fairly as possible, but we must also uphold ethics in giving criticism so that it can be done politely,” Puan said during a press conference at the DPR building in Senayan, Jakarta, on Tuesday (21/4/2026).

Puan stated that critics and recipients of criticism must respect and honour each other. On one hand, Puan assessed that critics must be polite; on the other, recipients of criticism must be willing to accept it.

“So indeed, mutual respect and appreciation must be done in both positions, meaning that those giving criticism must also deliver it well, and those receiving criticism will of course accept it if the criticism is indeed something done in the sense of constructive criticism,” Puan said.

“So we must continue to prioritise mutual appreciation and respect,” she continued.

As is known, the government has several times highlighted experts who frequently provide criticism. One spotlight came from Presidential Chief of Staff Teddy Indra Wijaya, who revealed that there is currently a phenomenon of increasing or inflation of commentators in the public sphere.

“Now, there is one phenomenon. What is it? There is what is called inflation of commentators. So, there are many commentators. There are rice commentators, but their background is not in that area. There are military commentators, foreign affairs commentators. And those commentators’ data do not match the facts. Their data is wrong,” Teddy said at the Presidential Palace complex in Jakarta on Friday (10/4).

Teddy assessed that the commentators who are rampant in speaking in public have long formed opinions and tried to influence citizens. Those commentators, according to Teddy, have been trying to shape public opinion since before Prabowo Subianto became President.

“From the majority, those commentators are commentators who have long tried to influence citizens and shape public opinion. Even before Mr Prabowo became President. So those commentators have already influenced citizens,” Teddy said.