No, the Philippines’ Foreign Affairs Secretary has not resigned

This article is more than one year old.
Published on July 18, 2018 at 18:15
1 min read
By AFP Philippines

Online reports say Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano has resigned from the government. However, the reports offer no supporting evidence and authorities told AFP the claims are not true.

Websites such as this and this claimed on July 7 that Cayetano stepped down from President Rodrigo Duterte’s cabinet.

When the reports are shared on Facebook they have a headline in Filipino that translates to: “It’s shocking, the sudden resignation of Cayetano. He was even trusted by Duterte”.

Clicking on the link on Facebook leads to a post that includes the same headline as above and a video.

The post was shared by different Facebook pages with a combined total of more than 220,000 followers.

The video in both sites, however, show presidential spokesman Harry Roque telling journalists in May that Cayetano has Duterte’s “full trust and confidence”.

Elmer Cato, spokesman for the Department of Foreign (DFA) Affairs, told an AFP journalist that these reports are “not true”.

“He (Cayetano) is still the DFA secretary,” Cato said.

Cayetano was also one of the cabinet members who accompanied Duterte in the latter’s meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on July 16, a week after the false reports.

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