A manipulated report falsely claimed Daniel Russel, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, gave sole credit to President Rodrigo Duterte for the historic return of the Balangiga Bells to the country.
Bayangpilipinas.com published Dec. 12 an article bearing the headline:
“US diplomat: We returned the Balangiga Bells because of Pres. Duterte.”
It said Russel stated “off-record,” or in confidence, that it was Duterte’s geopolitical strategy that pushed the U.S. to do so.
The bayangpilipinas.com article is false.
The website plagiarized a Dec. 11 ABS-CBN News report headlined “Balangiga Bells back in Philippines after 117 years.” It changed the original headline and altered the last two paragraphs, to include a fabricated quote from Russel. The photo used as the story’s thumbnail was a 2016 image of Russel owned by the news organization Reuters.
Russel, who left the U.S. State Department in 2017, did not issue any public statement on the return of the Balangiga Bells to the Philippines.
U.S. Embassy in the Philippines spokesperson Molly Koscina in a Dec. 10 press briefing said the return of the Balangiga Bells was a product of “decades worth of work and protest from the veterans” and “was not due to any particular event or statement.”
Bayangpilipinas.com published the post a day after the Balangiga Bells arrived in Manila.
The false post could have reached over 717,600 people. Its highest traffic generators include Facebook pages ALAN PETER CAYETANO SUPPORTERS INTERNATIONS, Duterte Worldwide Supporters, and DUTERTE MARCOS SUPPORTERS.
Bayangpilipinas.com was created in September 2017.
(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
