Posts target Philippine presidential hopeful Leni Robredo with misleadingly edited interview clip

The video was shared on Facebook on February 19. It has been viewed over 75,000 times since.

The 22-second clip appears to show an exchange between Robredo and veteran broadcaster Noli De Castro from Philippine television network ABS-CBN.

"How can someone steal the position for which you were elected?" De Castro asks Robredo.

"Exactly," Robredo appears to reply.

De Castro presses, "So you don't understand?"

"I don't understand," Robredo says.

At the end of the clip, text that reads "So stupid!!" in Tagalog appears on screen.

"Your mother [Leni] is really confused," reads the post's caption.

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Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, taken on March 12, 2022

Robredo is seeking the top job in the country's May elections. Recent surveys show she trails rival Marcos Jr by a wide margin.

Marcos Jr had previously accused Robredo of electoral fraud after she narrowly defeated him in the vice presidential race in 2016. A recount in tightly contested areas gave her a bigger lead.

Similar posts were also shared on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and TikTok here and here.

Comments to the posts suggest they misled many social media users.

"I'm not a lawyer but even I can understand the question," one wrote.

"She was not elected, Noli. She cheated," said another.

But these posts are misleading.

Doctored video

The video shared in the posts has been misleadingly edited. Keyword searches found it was taken from a longer interview that Robredo gave in December 2016 to news programme TV Patrol.

In the original video, Robredo was asked about allegations she cheated Marcos Jr to win the vice presidency and about her resignation from the cabinet of President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016.

The president and vice president are elected separately in the Philippines, and the current pair belong to rival parties.

However, portions of both the news anchor's questions and Robredo's answers were omitted in the video shared in the misleading posts.

At the one-minute mark of the original video, De Castro asks, "How can someone steal the position for which you were elected?"

Robredo replies, "Exactly. You know, I'm not allowed to talk about the case as it's part of the oath I took. It's part of our commitment. We know that they filed a [poll] protest even though it was baseless."

"It's part of the grand scheme to remove me from my position."

From the video's two minute 32-second mark, De Castro starts asking Robredo about her resignation from Duterte's cabinet.

She responds by saying a top presidential aide told her she had been banned from cabinet meetings for reasons unclear to her.

"So you don't understand?" De Castro asks.

"I don't understand," Robredo says.

Responding to the misleading posts, a representative for ABS-CBN told AFP the video was "digitally altered from the TV Patrol interview."

Election case dismissed

On February 16, 2021, the Philippine Supreme Court dismissed Marcos's appeal against his election loss to Robredo, saying he "failed" to prove there had been voting fraud.

The court published its 93-page ruling on the appeal case here on April 19, 2021.

Robredo has been a frequent target for disinformation ahead of the May vote, often fanned by supporters of Marcos Jr. AFP has debunked some of the most viral claims here.