Claiming Pres. Rodrigo Duterte is praised abroad while facing criticism in his own country, a netizen published April 6 a screengrab of a false post that claims world leaders said Pres. Rodrigo Duterte is the “light of our world,” and that they will follow in his footsteps.
Uploading it on pro-Duterte Facebook (FB) group Ang Pagbabalik Namin Mga DDS @ SARAH DUTERTE & BBM PARA SA 2022, the image showed a screenshot of a “breaking news” report with the headline, “ALL PRESIDENT TO DUTERTE: ‘YOU ARE THE LIGHT IN OUR WORLD’ WE WILL FOLLOW THE FOOTSTEPS OF DUTERTE,” accompanied by a thumbnail featuring three heads of state – Russia’s Vladimir Putin, the United States’ Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping.
Neither the URL nor name of the outfit that published the said report was provided.
There are no records of Putin, Trump, Xi, or any other world leader hailing Duterte as the “light of our world” and that they will follow in his footsteps.
A cursory search on the Web reveals that the line is from a song that Duterte partly sang during a gala dinner for Trump and other world leaders during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in November 2017. He joined Pilita Corrales in a song “Ikaw,” (You) that has a line, which when translated from Filipino, means: “You are the light in my world.”
The song was requested by Trump, according to several news reports. China’s Premier Li Keqiang attended the event on behalf of Xi Jinping, while Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev went in lieu of Putin.
The fake story appeared to have been first published in late March 2018, as a report that carried the exact same headline and thumbnail was debunked around that time by website Meme Buster.
The netizen’s untrue post surfaced the same day Duterte gave a televised address on April 6 about the government’s latest moves in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which received mixed reviews from Filipinos. The false FB post has been shared over 300 times, received more than 700 reactions and almost 150 comments.
(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
