Decade-old image falsely shared as Philippine demonstration against Rodrigo Duterte's arrest

Published on March 19, 2025 at 09:59
3 min read
By Tommy WANG, AFP Hong Kong

As supporters of former Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte staged protests in the Philippines and abroad, an image was shared in Chinese posts falsely claiming it showed demonstrators demanding President Ferdinand Marcos's resignation. The photo in fact shows demonstrators shouting as they attempted to reach the Philippine Congress before ex-president Benigno Aquino's final address to the nation in July 2015.

"Over two million people demonstrated in the Philippines, is civil unrest coming?" reads the simplified Chinese caption of a Douyin video shared on March 12, 2025.

The video shows a still image of several people shouting with their fists raised.

Overlaid text on the video says: "Massive protests erupted in the Philippines demanding the withdrawal of US troops and calling for Marcos to step down. Protesters clashed with police."

The image was shared days after Duterte was flown to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to face crimes against humanity charges linked to his years-long campaign against drug users and dealers that rights groups say killed thousands (archived link).

His supporters and his lawyer likened his arrest and transport to the Netherlands to a "kidnapping".

Screenshot of the false Douyin post, captured on March 19, 2025

The photo was also shared elsewhere on Douyin and Chinese search engine Baidu's content creation platform, which linked the shocking arrest to the falling out between President Marcos and the Duterte family.

Marcos told reporters that complying with the ICC warrant was simply a matter of the Philippines meeting its international obligations, but analysts told AFP the arrest would not have happened without the rift (archived link).

The simmering feud between the two political dynasties has seen Duterte label Marcos -- the one man who could have shielded him from the ICC -- a drug addict.

Marcos, in turn, has spent much of his time on the campaign trail ahead of May's mid-term elections railing against Duterte's bloody drug crackdown. He has also put China firmly centre stage, saying his predecessor's administration was all too happy for the Philippines "to be a province of China" (archived link).

While Duterte's arrest sparked protests across the Philippines, the image shared online first circulated almost a decade ago (archived link).

Philippine protest in 2015

A reverse image search on TinEye and a subsequent keyword search on Google found the photo was published by the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) on July 27, 2015 (archived link).

Its caption reads: "Filipino protesters shout as they attempt to reach the Philippine Congress ahead of the final address to the nation of Philippine President Benigno Aquino III in suburban Quezon City, east of Manila, Philippines, 27 July 2015."

Screenshot comparison of the image in the false post (left) and the EPA photo (right)

The image was also published by Flemish newspaper Het Nieuwsblad in a slideshow about protests during the president's speech (archived link).

AFP reported at the time that rain-drenched activists armed with bamboo poles holding protest banners attacked shield-bearing policemen who stopped them from marching on parliament (archived link).

AFP has previously debunked other false claims that have swirled since Duterte's arrest.

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