A Facebook (FB) page claiming to be that of Veronica “Kitty” Duterte, former president Rodrigo’s youngest daughter, posted an image of a supposed video call between the two, saying that her father will return soon. This is fake.
The May 13 post bore a photo of Kitty with an inset image of her father in the top right corner, appearing to be in a video call. The image was overlaid with the text:
“Vedio (sic) call with my Dada
congratulations Dada makakauwi kana Soon (you’ll be coming home soon).”
Contrary to the caption, Duterte is not returning to the Philippines any time soon.
The page that uploaded this post is an impostor. The photo of the supposed video call is actually a splice of two different images.
The younger Duterte’s official Facebook account is Kitty Duterte (@vduterte). The page that uploaded the photo is titled Veronica Duterte and has no username. The page was created on April 3 as Kitty Duterte Updates and changed its name to Veronica Duterte on May 13.
The inset photo of the former president is from his daughter’s Instagram story uploaded on March 11. It was a screenshot of a video call with her father while he was airborne to The Hague following his arrest at Villamor Air Base in Pasay City. The image of Kitty is from a TikTok video (archive) uploaded on Feb. 17.
The former president has been detained in Scheveningen, the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s detention facility in The Hague, Netherlands, as he awaits the confirmation of charges hearing scheduled on Sept. 23. He was arrested on March 11 under an ICC warrant coursed through the International Criminal Police Organization.
The post circulated as the Duterte camp submitted a defense challenge on May 1 contesting the ICC’s jurisdiction in the Philippines in view of the country’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute that took effect on March 17, 2019.
The older Duterte also leads the mayoral race in Davao City in the May 12 midterm polls despite his detention, with 662,630 votes (87.91%) as of May 14. He is up against four other candidates, including Karlo Nograles, who was his Cabinet secretary from 2018 to 2022 and appointed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as chairperson of the Civil Service Commission on June 30, 2022.
The uploaded photo has so far garnered over 190,000 reactions, 10,200 comments and 1,300 shares.
