Clip shows Spanish music festival attendees, not supporters of Philippines' impeached VP
- Published on March 4, 2025 at 05:34
- 3 min read
- By Lucille SODIPE, AFP Philippines
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The video, showing a massive crowd that appears to be chanting "Duterte, Duterte", was viewed nearly half a million times after it was shared on Facebook on February 17, 2025.
Its caption is six green hearts -- the colour Sara Duterte used in her vice presidential campaign in 2022.
The formidable alliance of Duterte and Ferdinand Marcos -- the scions of two of the country's most powerful political families -- swept to power in the 2022 elections but has imploded spectacularly.
The battle between the political dynasties is at the heart of mid-term elections that could determine the political future of Duterte, who was impeached by the House of Representatives on February 5 (archived link).
An impeachment trial, on charges that could see her barred from office, will be held in the Senate where a dozen open seats are up for grabs in the May vote.
The video also circulated on TikTok, with comments on the posts suggesting users believed it showed a rally of pro-Duterte supporters while urging others to support Duterte's allies in the upcoming mid-term elections.
"Big yes!" read part of one comment. "Vote straight Duterte team line up."
Another comment, referring to Duterte's political party, read, "Vote straight for PDP" (archived link).
The video circulating online, however, has been manipulated.
Valencia's Zevra Festival
Keyword searches on TikTok led to the same footage shared on July 23, 2023 (archived link).
The TikTok footage has different audio, and there are no chants for "Duterte".
Among the several hashtags included in its caption is "zevra2023".
Subsequent keyword searches on Google found similar clips were captured during the Zevra Festival, which is held in the Spanish city of Valencia every summer (archived link).
One clip from the 2023 iteration that was uploaded to the festival's YouTube channel shows the same stage and ferris wheel seen in the misleadingly shared video (archived link).
The audio overlaid on this footage was lifted from a video taken in 2016, when Rodrigo Duterte was running for president (archived link).
The video, which was uploaded by local news outlet Rappler, is captioned, "Duterte supporters gather in Cebu grand rally".
AFP has previously debunked other videos that were doctored to insert pro-Duterte chants here and here.
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