A Facebook (FB) page falsely claimed that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) admitted to attempting election fraud against presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
On March 16, YouTube channel Bry Updates BPU (created on July 8, 2019) uploaded a video with the erroneous headline: “COMELEC may inamin! BBM balak dayaing muli, 5.2 million Defective balots (sic) Nadiskubre (Comelec admitted something! Plans to cheat on BBM again, 5.2 million defective ballots discovered)!”
The Comelec has made no such “admission” in any statement or press briefing in connection with committing fraud against Marcos.
More, the content of the false YouTube video did not support its headline. The 11-minute video only carried the March 15 FB Live video of lawyer Glenn Chong, who suggested that the printing of defective ballots could be a scheme to defraud Marcos.
On March 15, Comelec said that of the 49.73 million ballots it had so far printed, 5.2 million were defective and set to be shredded.
The election body later clarified that only 105,000 of the 5.2 million ballots earlier described as defective were considered to be “bad”. It found that some of the good copies for verification were mixed with the defective ones.
On April 6, Comelec reported that the number of defective ballots had risen to 224,000 and this set will have to be reprinted. It said the faulty prints will be burned and destroyed during the reverification process.
The false video first emerged a day after Marcos’ March 15 Nueva Ecija rally where several media organizations noticed cash envelopes being distributed among the supporters. Marcos’ political party said it “abhors” such action.
The video was reposted on the FB page of Bry Updates BPU and continues to gain traction as Marcos dropped four points, though still the leading presidential candidate, in a voter preference survey conducted by Pulse Asia. Poll results were published on April 6.
The YouTube video has been viewed over a thousand times while the FB video has received more than 975,000 views and garnered more than 68,000 reactions, 12,000 comments and 45,000 shares.
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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.)
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