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FACT CHECK

VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Online story on Duterte satisfaction rating NEEDS CONTEXT

Philnetizen.com misleads with its own interpretation of an online poll on readers’ satisfaction with President Rodrigo Duterte’s performance in 2018.

The website published an article headlined “84% ng mga Pinoy, ‘satisfied’ sa pamumuno ni Pangulong Duterte ayon sa Yahoo Poll (84% of Filipinos, ‘satisfied’ with President Duterte’s presidency according to Yahoo Poll),” based on a Dec. 31 informal poll by web services provider Yahoo! which has made no conclusion of its survey.

Yahoo!’s one-question survey, which currently remains open, asks readers to answer whether or not they were satisfied with the Duterte leadership in 2018. Philnetizen.com reports that out of 68,000 votes, 84% answered yes while 16% said no.

The informal survey does not reflect national sentiment, as philnetizen.com claims in its story, because the demographics of its respondents were not identified. Also, an individual may actually answer the poll more than once.

The misleading report came a week after the Social Weather Stations released the results of its Dec. 16 to 19 survey, which found 74% of Filipinos were satisfied with Duterte’s performance in 2018. The SWS spoke to 1,440 people around the country, surveying 360 people each from Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao and Metro Manila.

Philnetizen.com’s misleading story could have reached over two million people, with traffic to the story largely coming from the pages Greco Belgica, PTV ng Bayan and PhilNetizen.

Philnetizen.com was created on Sept. 26, 2018.

(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)