A quote card showing the youngest son of presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. admitting his father used cocaine is bogus.
The fabricated graphic circulating on Facebook (FB) had Vincent Marcos saying: “He WAS an addict but NOT anymore. He has no plans yet about his platforms but for sure he’ll figure it our (sic) soon. And I have never seen him hurt a fly when he was using cocaine.”
Vincent supposedly made these remarks during his interview for Boy Abunda’s The Interviews Of The Wives And Children Of The 2022 Presidential Candidates series aired on March 9. It also used a screenshot from the interview for added credibility.
A reader asked VERA Files to verify the post.
Vincent never made these remarks about his father during his interview with Abunda.
Abunda’s official Facebook page released a statement on April 2 to clarify that the circulating quote card was “false and manipulated content.” It appealed to netizens to stop sharing “fabricated and unverified information.”
When Abunda asked him why people should vote for his father, the young Marcos said at the 42:27-minute mark of the interview: “I think he’s just a great guy, a great father. I’ve never seen him hurt a fly. So just for that, I would say go for it.”
Social media monitoring tool CrowdTangle showed that the fabricated quote card began circulating on at least three FB pages and groups on March 31, ahead of April Fool’s Day. One of the posts garnered over 900 reactions and 3,000 shares as of writing.
In a Nov. 18 address, President Rodrigo Duterte alleged that one of the presidential aspirants was a cocaine user. However, he did not disclose the identity of the candidate.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
