Several posts are circulating on Facebook alleging that members of the House of Representatives were pressured to sign the impeachment complaints against Vice President Sara Duterte. This is not true.
A reader sent a request through VERA Files’ Messenger Misinformation Tip Line to verify the claim. The FB pages and users spread similar posts, with part of the text that read:
“Kinulong sila sa isang room, ang mga pinilt pumirma sa impeachment laban kay VP Sara, kinuha ang cellphones, nagkatakutan at gaguhan na para pumirma. Si JJ Suarez ang naninigaw na parang ulul daw.
([House members] were forced inside a room. They were forced to sign the impeachment [complaint] against VP Sara. Their cellphones were confiscated and they were also threatened to sign it. [Quezon Province Rep. Jay-jay Suarez] was shouting like a madman).”
In separate interviews, members of the House Majority and Minority blocs refuted this allegation.
Deputy Minority Leader and ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro said in a Feb. 6 interview that House leaders explained the contents of the fourth impeachment complaint during a meeting last week before the signing took place.
“That’s what happened. No one was coerced. The members of the House willingly signed the six copies of the impeachment complaint,” Castro said in Filipino.
On the other hand, Assistant Majority Leader and Lanao del Sur Rep. Zia Alonto Adiong, alongside other lawmakers, said in a press conference on the same day that this rumor is false information.
“It just goes to show that these fake news and rumors saying that [lawmakers] were forced – or that House members were influenced [to sign the complaint] – proves that these are not true and we all decided based on the appreciation of the merits of this complaint,” Adiong said in a mix of English and Filipino.
President Ferdinand Marcos also said that soliciting signatures for the complaints was unlikely, given the number of legislators who signed the document, adding there were even more members who were unable to do so because they were out of town.
VERA Files Fact Check reached out to Quezon Province Rep. David Suarez for comment on the false online rumors explicitly mentioning him but his office said the lawmaker was unavailable.
The false claim emerged after 215 House of Representatives members voted to impeach the vice president, a first in the history of the country.
Facebook page Boldyakan (created on May 21, 2016) and two FB users published the claim, collectively garnering over 11,000 reactions, 2,200 comments and 4,600 shares.
