A copycat graphic posted on Facebook is claiming that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. “confirmed” during his penultimate State of the Nation Address that his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte, is set to be released by the International Criminal Court. This is not true.
VERA Files traced the earliest publicly available copy of the claim to a July 27 post by an FB user. The graphic, which appears to have imitated a social media card on “#SONA2026” from a legitimate news outlet, featured a photo of Marcos on the bottom-right portion and Duterte’s image on the upper-left corner.
The fabricated quote attributed to the president read:
“Confirmed, Tatay Digong will be released next week. The entire Philippines will celebrate sa pagbabalik nya (his return).. Thank you Lord
PRESIDENT
BONGBONG MARCOS”
A day later, an FB page reposted the spurious graphic on its account profile and on three other different FB groups, including those that are supportive of the erstwhile president’s eldest daughter, Vice President Sara, and Sen. Imee Marcos.
However, the President did not mention Duterte’s pending crimes against humanity case before the ICC and continued detention in The Hague in his SONA on July 27.
A reverse image search of the bogus graphic led to the exact authentic quote cards published by GMA News about various issues tackled by Marcos in this year’s SONA.
A closer inspection of the quoted card revealed multiple signs of alteration, including the use of a different font, removal of the news outlet’s logo from the lower-left corner, and the placement of Duterte’s photo to obscure the large blue quotation marks originally found on the upper-left portion of the actual graphic.
The former president remains behind bars as he awaits his trial scheduled to begin on Nov. 30.
The manufactured quote card emerged two days after VP Sara’s July 25 gathering with the Filipino community in London, United Kingdom, where she shared her plan to visit her detained father the following week. The announcement was subsequently misinterpreted by some netizens and debunked by VERA Files.
In a separate interview on July 28, the vice president herself denied circulating social media posts that her father will be released from the ICC detention center, noting that she “did not know where that claim came from.”
The five posts with untrue claims published by an FB user and page, Chismoso ng Bayan (created June 2, 2026), collectively received 734 interactions as of writing. One copy has been cross-posted on TikTok.
