Clip from Guinea falsely shared as 'Philippine rebels supporting VP Duterte'
- Published on December 5, 2024 at 09:09
- 4 min read
- By Jan Cuyco, AFP Philippines
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The video -- showing a crowd surrounding a parade of military trucks -- has been viewed more than 39,000 times since it was shared on Facebook on November 28, 2024.
"The police may have removed the vice president's security guards, but the MNLF and MILF are ready to support the vice president," reads part of the Tagalog-language text on the video, referring to the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The MNLF signed a peace deal with the government in 1996, and the MILF, a breakaway faction, also agreed to a peace pact in 2014 to end their deadly armed rebellion (archived links here and here).
"The MNLF and MILF have arrived, prepare yourselves," the overlaid text went on to say.
The video was also shared alongside similar false claims here, here and here.
It surfaced after Philippine security forces said on November 27 they had replaced the mix of soldiers and police officers who served as Vice President Duterte's bodyguards (archived link).
A national police spokeswoman said the force had asked prosecutors to file assault charges against Duterte and members of her security detail for interfering in the transfer of her detained chief of staff.
The decision to swap out Duterte's security detail came days after the justice department launched a probe into her alleged death threat against President Ferdinand Marcos.
Duterte and Marcos teamed up during the 2022 national elections but the alliance collapsed spectacularly as their families attempted to shore up rival bases in the lead-up to mid-term elections in 2025.
MNLF state chairman Rolando Olamit said on July 30 the group would offer security assistance to Duterte, after the number of police on her security team was reduced -- a move she decried as "political harassment" (archived links here and here).
But there have been no official reports that members of the MNLF or the MILF had staged a show of support for Duterte following the changes to her security detail in November.
Moreover, the circulating video was filmed in Guinea and not the Philippines.
Guinean president's return
A reverse image search on Google led to a video uploaded on September 12, 2024 by a Facebook page that posts about the president of the West African nation (archived link).
The video's French-language caption said it showed Guineans welcoming interim President Mamadi Doumbouya in the capital Conakry after his visit to China.
Below is the screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the video posted on September 12 (right):
Doumbouya returned to Conakry on September 11, according to an official government announcement and a report by public broadcaster RTG Guinee (archived links here and here).
Elements in the clip also correspond to locations in the Guinean capital.
A partially obscured billboard -- which appears to show two people holding mobile phones -- can be seen at the start of the video.
It bore the French-language phrase, "2024, nouvelle année, objectif constant".
Keyword searches found it corresponded to a billboard for the commercial bank "Banque Populaire Morocco Guinéenne" (archived links here and here).
Moreover, a Shell gasoline station can be found at the 11-second mark of the circulating video.
Guinean news outfit VAS TV 224 featured the same billboard and filling station at the 2:27 mark of its Facebook video of the procession (archived link).
Below is the screenshot comparison of the false post (left) and the VAS TV 224 Facebook video (right), with corresponding elements highlighted by AFP:
The video was filmed on a road near the Conakry airport, where the Guinean president's verified Facebook page said the procession originated (archived links here and here).
AFP has debunked other misinformation sparked by the rift between the Duterte and Marcos families here and here.
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