A Facebook post claims Sen. Imee Marcos revealed a plan of former Senate president Vicente “Tito” Sotto to pit his nephew, Pasig City Mayor Vico Sotto, against Vice President Sara Duterte in the 2028 presidential elections. This is fake.
The post published on May 25 has a caption that says:
“Plano ni Tito Sen, ibinunyag ni Senadora Imee Marcos, nais umano nito itaoat si Vico Sotto kay Inday Sara sa halalan 2028
(Sen. Imee Marcos revealed [Sen.] Tito [Sotto’s] plan, allegedly wanting to pit Vico Sotto against Inday Sara in the 2028 elections).”
The post contains a graphic card with a photo of the two Sottos and Duterte, and bears a text that says:
“Tito Sen, gustong itapat si Vico Sotto kay Inday Sara sa Halalan 2028
(Sen. Sotto wants to pit Vico Sotto against Sara Duterte in the 2028 elections).“
Another Facebook page republished the same graphic on May 27, adding a caption alleging that Sen. Sotto is tarnishing his nephew’s name.
Vico Sotto is ineligible to run for president in 2028 because he will only be 38 years old on election day, falling short of the constitutional requirement of at least 40. Besides, neither Sen. Sotto nor Marcos made any such statement about a matchup with Duterte.
On May 11, Tito Sotto was ousted as Senate president after Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano secured 13 votes to take over the chamber’s top post.
The coup happened on the same date the House of Representatives voted 257 in favor, 25 against, and 9 abstentions to approve the Articles of Impeachment against the vice president.
According to the post’s caption, Marcos disclosed the Vico vs Sara match after the May 11 Senate coup. While Marcos’ privilege speech on May 25 mentioned the Sottos, it was not stated that the senator was planning to pit Mayor Vico against VP Duterte.
What Marcos raised in her speech was about the alleged plan for Charter change through a constituent assembly or constitutional convention. She had a video presentation played, part of which said that one of the proposed changes is to raise the presidential age requirement to 50 to disqualify Duterte from running, but Sen. Sotto allegedly recommended lowering it instead to 35 so that Mayor Vico would qualify and beat the vice president in the 2028 presidential contest.
In the video, the voiceover narration said:
“Lumutang din ang usapang para di makaporma si Inday Sara sa 2028, gawing 50 years old ang edad ng pwedeng tumakbo. Pero nagpanukala rin si Sotto na pwedeng gawing 35 years old para kay Vico Sotto dahil ipagmamayabang niya na kayang talunin nito si Inday Sara
(Talks also surfaced that to block Inday Sara from making a move in 2028, the required age to run should be raised to 50 years old. But Sotto also proposed that it could be made 35 years old for Vico Sotto because he would boast that the latter can defeat Inday Sara).”
Sen. Sotto denied this, saying that although he had expressed a preference for lowering the presidential age requirement if constitutional amendments were pursued, the remark was made in jest, and the source who overheard it had misunderstood the context.
The fake posts emerged amid the Senate leadership shakeup, insinuations that a Duterte-aligned bloc engineered the ouster to influence the upcoming impeachment trial, and Marcos’ privilege speech on Charter change.
The post published by the Facebook page Balitang Politika Ngayon PH with 120,000 followers has garnered 2,182 reactions, 707 comments, and 7 shares.
