False posts claim rally for Philippine presidential hopeful Leni Robredo 'biggest in country's history'

"The BIGGEST campaign rally in the history of Philippine politics. Congrats VP Leni Robredo for [sic] the next commander in chief", reads the caption to this Facebook post published on February 9.

The post shares a photo collage of a Robredo campaign rally.

The collage's text overlay states in part: "PNP R9 estimates crowd at 200,000 to 400,000 while Associated Press (AP) estimates crowd at 300,000 to 600,000.

"VP Leni Gerona Robredo's Proclamation Rally Plaza Quezon, Naga City, Feb. 8, 2022."

Anold logo of AP is shown on the lower right side of the collage.

Image

Screenshot of false post taken on February 15, 2022

Robredo kicked off her presidential bid on February 8 in her hometown Naga, a city in central Philippines.

"PNP R9" refers to the Philippine National Police headquarters in Region 9 that has jurisdiction over provinces in southwestern Philippines -- about 800 kilometers away from Naga.

Identical posts were also shared on Twitter here and here; and on Facebook here, here and here.

However, the claims in these post are false.

Crowd estimates

Representatives for PNP Region 9 and AP separately denied issuing the crowd estimates indicated in the false posts.

"Naga City is not under our area of responsibility," Police Major Shellamie Chang told AFP. "We refrain from issuing crowd estimates because we're not the proper authority to do that."

Asked if AP issued the estimates in the posts, Jim Gomez, chief correspondent for the news agency's Manila bureau, told AFP: "No".

Not AP photos

A reverse image search found AP did not take the photos shared in the false posts.

The photos were originally published here on February 8 by a Facebook user who identified himself as Gerald Resuena.

Resuena told AFP he is a videographer based in Naga and he took the photos "to show my support for Robredo".

The AP logo overlaid in the photo collage is old and no longer appears in recent publications by the news agency. Their current logo can be found here on AP's official website.

Not 'biggest rally'

Allen Reondanga, public information office chief at Naga, told AFP the number of attendees to Robredo's rally in February ranges from "15,000 to 18,000".

Rallies held by presidential hopefuls in previous elections have drawn hundreds of thousands to a million attendees, according to multiple reports.

News reports indicate that between 300,000 to over 500,000 people rallied on May 7, 2016 in support of President Rodrigo Duterte's candidacy.

A government report estimated that about a million people joined the final campaign rally of the late president Corazon Aquino in 1986.