UPDATED: Netizens mistake SATIRICAL piece on VP Robredo as true
May 13
Netizens mistook as true a May 7 Adobo Chronicles satirical article claiming Vice President and opposition leader Leni Robredo has vowed to resign should all Otso Diretso bets lose the midterm elections.
The post has been shared on 25 Facebook pages and has garnered 5,762 interactions as of May 13, election day. A screengrab of the original post was shared that day by WBP We Blog Ph, which had 390 interactions.
A netizen who shared the post on Facebook group The President Duterte Guardians wrote the caption: “For sure nagsisinungaling yan (she’s lying)...dinadaya na nila election (they’re already cheating the election).”
No legitimate media report or official account has quoted Robredo making such statement.
According to the article by Adobo Chronicles it shared on Facebook:
After all, Leni Robredo has some delicadeza left in her. She is promising to vacate her position as Vice President if none of the Otso Diretso Senatorial candidates makes it to the top 12 in Monday’s Philippine midterm elections.
While the article does not contain a direct quote from Robredo, it both states and implies she will take the fall for her “failure” to lead Otso Diretso to victory.
In its about page, Adobo Chronicles says “Everything you read on this site is based on fact, except for the lies.” It even provides users instructions how to consume its content: italicized statements “represent the facts” while “the rest are fiction.” The statement about Robredo’s resignation is classified as fiction.
The part of the article about her “promise” was not in italics. The photo of Robredo used as thumbnail was taken from her inaugural speech in 2016.
May 15
As netizens continued to share the post, Robredo tweeted the following on May 15 in her official Twitter page:
Not true. Let's continue fighting disinformation. Report peddlers of fake news. ?? pic.twitter.com/0iMFNnqRZu
— Leni Robredo (@lenirobredo) May 15, 2019
May 16
Rappler published May 16 a related fact check. Read: FALSE: VP Leni Robredo ‘promised’ to step down if no Otso Diretso bet wins
