Fabricated screenshot fans baseless claim Philippine first lady 'detained' in US
- Published on April 22, 2025 at 06:24
- 5 min read
- By Lucille SODIPE, AFP Philippines
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"You can see here how they've been fooling the people but [diehard Duterte supporters] are too smart for this," reads a Facebook post on March 30.
It included two screenshots apparently taken from First Lady Liza Marcos's verified account. One shows four photos of an event taken on March 27.
The other is supposedly a collection of over 2,330 photos posted September 26, 2022 which includes a five-photo collage, including the four pictures as the recent post.
"To those who are pro-Marcos, please answer me this, are you still fighting for the right thing?" the post adds.
Rumours that the first lady was held up by law enforcement in Los Angeles surfaced online in early March after she came back from a working visit to the United States (archived link).
The false claims spread after President Marcos's government handed over former leader Rodrigo Duterte to the International Criminal Court to face a crimes against humanity charge tied to his drug war in which thousands were killed (archived link).
The presidential palace dismissed the rumours on March 13 and there have been no official reports that the first lady has been detained in the United States as of April 22 (archived here, here, here).
The images spread elsewhere on Facebook and were cross-posted across multiple platforms such as X, Threads, TikTok and Instagram.
Fabricated screenshot
Keyword searches found one of the screenshots corresponds to a March 29 post on Liza Marcos's verified Facebook page (archived link).
The caption read: "Cocktail reception to celebrate Women's Month with lady ambassadors & female spouses of heads of diplomatic missions in the Philippines. Kalayaan Hall, Malacañan Palace, Manila. 27 March 2025."
A corresponding video of the event was also posted on the same day (archived link).
But the other screenshot supposedly showing the older post has been fabricated.
A review of the photos and video of the event shows foreign envoys who began their assignment in the Philippines after the supposed September 26, 2022 date in the fabricated post.
Ambassadors Yuliia Fediv of Ukraine, Emma Hickey of Ireland, Saija Nurminen of Finland and Megawati Dato Paduka Haji Manan of Brunei can be seen in one of the photos (archived here, here, here and here)
Fediv was posted to the Philippines in March 2025; Hickey and Nurminen in September 2024; and Manan in March 2023.
A review of the video found more ambassadors whose posting came after 2022.
These include Marie Fontanel of France and Constance See Sin Yuan of Singapore appointed in 2023; Catherine McIntosh of New Zealand posted in 2024; and Smiljana Knez of Slovenia who arrived early this year in February (archived here, here, here and here).
Six of the envoys seen in the first lady's Facebook posts also attended an event at Manila's De La Salle University on the same day of the first lady's cocktail party on March 27 (archived link).
The other photo in the fabricated collage came from a post from March 28 and showed the first lady in an inter-agency meeting at held at her office the day before (archived link).
A further review of Liza Marcos's Facebook timeline from August 2022 -- when the page was created -- to December 2022 found that social media posts with photos only included a maximum of four pictures.
There are no posts that carried thousands, contrary to what's displayed in the fabricated screenshot.
AFP has debunked another post that falsely claimed Liza Marcos was "detained" in the United States.
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