A resident walks along an almost empty street in Manila on March 29, 2021, on day one of government's imposing stricker lockdown, as hospitals in the capital struggle to cope with a surge in coronavirus infections. (AFP / Jam Sta Rosa)

Philippine official who sparked lockdown controversy becomes target of death hoax

This article is more than one year old.
Published on April 19, 2021 at 05:40
2 min read
By AFP Philippines

Facebook and YouTube posts circulating in the Philippines claim CCTV footage shows a village official being shot dead after she made controversial comments about essential food products during lockdown. The claim is false: the video shared in the posts is from an unrelated news report first shared in 2018. As of April 19, 2021, there were no credible reports the official had been killed.

The claim was shared on April 3, 2021 on this blog. It misleadingly features the logo for Philippine broadcaster GMA News.

It includes a video clip with a Tagalog-language headline that reads: “GMA NEWS: Phez ‘Rice Porridge Girl’ Raymundo, shot multiple times in the head; CCTV footage.”

Phez Raymundo is a local village officer in the Philippine province of Bulacan who sparked criticism after a video emerged of her barring the delivery of Filipino rice porridge -- which she said was "not essential" -- to a resident during lockdown.

(Screenshot of the imposter website taken on April 14, 2021)

The uproar prompted a presidential spokesperson to issue a clarification that any food item was classified as “an essential good”.

The first few seconds of the video shows part of a GMA news programme. It then cuts to CCTV footage showing village security officers standing on a road.

The video was widely shared on social media, including here and here on Facebook, here on YouTube and in this blog post alongside a similar claim.

The claim is false: the video, which has circulated online since 2018, was published on an imposter site.

Contacted by AFP, GMA News’ editor-in-chief Jaemark Tordecilla confirmed the misleading blog post was not affiliated with his company.

Keyword searches online found the video in the imposter blog post was taken from this unrelated news report on GMA, which aired on April 7, 2018 -- three years before Raymundo's comments about rice porridge.

The report is headlined: “Man who charged at the police with a knife is gunned down.”

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the misleading blog post (L) and the original GMA news report (R):

A screenshot of the video in the misleading blog post (L) and the original GMA news video (R)

AFP found no credible media reports that Raymundo has been killed.

Philippine media organization Rappler also debunked the false claim here.

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