Video of Filipino Muslim gathering manipulated to add pro-Duterte chant
- Published on December 20, 2024 at 06:05
- 4 min read
- By Lucille SODIPE, AFP Philippines
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The public facade of unity between the families of President Ferdinand Marcos and his vice president Sara Duterte has shattered as both sides shored up support ahead of the next mid-term and presidential polls. But a video that racked up millions of views on social media, purportedly of a mass show of support for the Duterte clan from Filipino Muslims, is doctored. It shows Muslims celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan in April but the audio heard in the clip was taken from a pro-Duterte gathering held overseas.
"A country's cry: the Islams (sic) are solidly Duterte," reads Tagalog-language text superimposed on a TikTok video shared on November 15, 2024.
The 25-second clip shows scores of people, some wearing traditional Muslim clothing and sitting on prayer mats, in an open green area.
Shouts of "Duterte, Duterte!" can also be heard throughout the clip.
The clip was viewed more than two million times elsewhere on TikTok here and here and on Facebook.
It surfaced against the backdrop of a bitter falling out between the families of President Ferdinand Marcos and his firebrand predecessor Rodrigo Duterte (archived link).
Marcos joined forces with Duterte's daughter Sara to sweep to power in 2022, but accusations of drug abuse, threats to split the country and rumours of a coup plot have destroyed the public facade of unity between the powerful clans.
The open hostility reached fever pitch on November 23, when Sara Duterte claimed in an expletive-laden online news conference that she had told someone to kill Marcos, his wife Liza, and House of Representatives Speaker Martin Romualdez -- a Marcos cousin -- if she were assassinated.
Her comments are under investigation; Sara Duterte has denied making a death threat, describing the comments as an expression of "consternation" with the Marcos administration's failures (archived link).
While there have been public rallies in support of the Dutertes, the video circulating online shows a religious gathering and its audio has been replaced with sound from a different event (archived links here, here and here).
Eid al-Fitr holiday
The large structure seen in the background at the beginning of the falsely shared video corresponds to Google Street View imagery of the Quirino Grandstand -- a popular venue in Manila for presidential inaugurations, rallies and other large gatherings (archived link).
A keyword search on Google found several posts by news organisations about Filipino Muslims gathering at the grandstand during two of Islam's largest annual celebrations -- Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and Eid al-Adha, which marks the end of the hajj pilgrimage.
Posts on social media by local news outlets, including the Philippine Star, Manila Bulletin, Manila Standard and government-run Philippine News Agency, show a large blue-green banner at the front of the gathering at the Quirino Grandstand on April 10 (archived here, here, here and here).
Zooming in on the falsely shared video shows a corresponding banner for Eid al-Fitr to the right of the grandstand.
Below is a screenshot comparison of the banner in the circulating clip that has been magnified by AFP (left) and the corresponding banner as shown in a Philippine Star photo posted on Facebook (right):
AFP has previously debunked false claims that used the audio overlaid over the falsely shared video to claim large crowds were supporting former president Duterte here and here.
The sound was lifted from a video posted on Facebook on June 30 by SMNI, a media company founded by Duterte's spiritual advisor Apollo Quiboloy (archived link).
The video shows supporters of former president Duterte in Hong Kong chanting his name, led by a Filipino vlogger.
Philippine fact-checking organisation FactRakers has also debunked the claim the clip shows Muslims gathering to support Duterte.
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