A quote card attributed to Fr. Flavie Villanueva a statement describing the deaths of Ateneo de Manila University basketball players Rene Baterbonia and Divine Adili as “extrajudicial killings.” This is fake.
Circulating across social media as early as June 14, the graphic featured photos of Villanueva and the two athletes, who drowned during a “team-building activity” in Aurora province. The priest’s purported statement read:
“Maliwanag pa sa sikat ng araw na EJK ang pagkamatay ng dalawang atleta sa ateneo, nakapagtataka talaga, taga davao sila tapos biglang napadpad sa baler aurora kaya dapat lang maimbestigahan ang mga duterte sa sinapit ng dalawang biktima
(It’s as clear as daylight that the deaths of the two Ateneo athletes were [extrajudicial killings]. It’s really suspicious that they were from Davao but ended up in Baler, Aurora. That’s why the Dutertes should be investigated over what happened to the two victims.)”
Villanueva, in a June 16 post on his official Facebook page, disowned the statement, tagging it as “fake news.”
The bogus quote card also carried two false details. First, the two basketball players were not residents of Davao. The hometown of 19-year-old rising star Baterbonia was Talacogon, Agusan del Sur, while 21-year-old foreign student-athlete Adili hailed from Nigeria.
Contrary to what the post claimed, the tragic drowning incident occurred on June 8 during the supposed team-building event of the Ateneo Men’s Basketball team in Dipaculao, not Baler, Aurora.
VERA Files previously debunked several disinformation targeting Villanueva, a Ramon Magsaysay awardee and priest widely known for supporting EJK victims of the drug war under the Duterte regime.
The manufactured remark attributed to Villanueva spread online amid the ongoing investigation of the drowning of Baterbonia and Adili.
‘Possible homicide or hazing’ cases
In a June 15 press briefing, Police Maj. Gen. Robert Morico II, Director of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group, said they are looking into “possible homicide or hazing” violations in the incident and are still conducting interviews of the Blue Eagles players.
“The Anti-Hazing Act of 2018 applies not only to fraternities, or academies, or organizations like those in police training. It also applies to any organization, as a requirement for continuing membership,” Morico explained.
He added that among the factors to consider in the drowning incident are the “forced calisthenics, exposure to weather, or any brutal treatment or forced physical activity.”
Ateneo head coach Tab Baldwin and team manager Christopher “Epok” Quimpo have stepped down in the wake of the tragedy.
The earliest post of the made-up quote that VERA Files tracked, published by an FB user, amassed 15,000 reactions; 4,100 comments and 4,000 shares. A reaction video to the spurious graphic uploaded by page Langkoy (created on Jan. 25, 2024) received 13,000 reactions, 907 comments, 1,300 shares and 267,000 views.
From June 15 to 16, at least 30 posts from netizens across FB, Instagram, Threads, and X republished the fraudulent quote card, with some uploading it on pro-Duterte groups.
