An old, altered photo of Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio reading a national newspaper with a front page headline “SARA IN 2022” is again circulating on Facebook.
The fake post showing her holding a copy of the Philippine Star resurfaced as candidates for the May 2022 polls formalized their intentions to contest the elections. The presidential daughter herself filed her certificate of candidacy as third-term mayor.
Tracked through reverse image search, the original photo was actually from a Feb. 25, 2018 article on the Star’s website. The copy of the paper was from a day earlier, where the banner story bore the title: “Speaker Sara in 2019?”
The story was about Duterte-Carpio weighing her options on whether to run for reelection as mayor of Davao City or to seek a post at the House of Representatives in the 2019 midterm polls.
A side-by-side comparison shows that the headline text was digitally erased and replaced with the words “SARA IN 2022.”
Two pro-Duterte pages — Daily Duterte and Bigboss Duterte — uploaded the manipulated photo on Oct. 1 and have collectively garnered over 10,300 reactions and over 420 shares. Netizens who saw the manipulated photo wrote comments urging Duterte-Carpio to run for president.
On Oct. 2, the city mayor submitted her certificate to run for a third consecutive and final term in the Duterte bailiwick. Later that day, the president told reporters Sara would seek the presidency.
The altered photo was also fact-checked by Rappler and Agence-France Presse in February and March.
Daily Duterte was created in December 2015, and Bigboss Duterte in May 2016.
(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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