A motorcade held in the Ilocos region in support of presidential aspirant Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. on Nov. 7 was allegedly recognized as the longest caravan in Philippine history by the Guinness World Records, reported a YouTube video. Not true.
The channel CHIKABAE UPDATES uploaded the fake post on Nov. 9, bearing the headline: “’BBM HAWAK ANG GUINESS (sic) WORLD OF RECORD AS PHILIPPINES LONGEST MOTORCADE CARAVAN!’| ‘LAKAS NG NORTE’ (BBM holds Guiness world record on Philippines’ longest motorcade caravan! | Strength of the North).”
No such feat was hailed recently by the Guinness World Records, the authority on record-breaking achievements.
Organizers of the pro-Marcos event, however, indeed claimed that it was the “longest motorcade” in the country, joined by thousands of supporters and supposedly spanning more than 125 kilometers.
The title closest to the Marcos motorcade that is recognized by the Guinness World Records was the largest parade of trucks in Cairo, Egypt on Nov. 20, 2020. With a length of 7.5 kilometers, it involved 480 trucks for a campaign to help a million less fortunate families during the winter season.
The only record held by the Marcoses in the Guinness World Records is the title for the “greatest robbery of a government,” where it said, citing the Philippine government, that the total national loss from November 1965 up to 1986 was estimated to range from $5 to $10 billion.
The content of the two and a half-hour long YouTube video was a collection of unrelated clips patched together featuring, among others, senatorial aspirant Larry Gadon and pro-Duterte vloggers Banat By and Dante Maravillas, who all have a history of spreading disinformation.
The false claim emerged five days after a group filed a petition to bar Marcos Jr. from running in the 2022 elections due to his 1995 tax evasion conviction.
The Marcos camp has until Nov. 22 to respond to the petition. The Commission on Elections has scheduled a preliminary conference on Nov. 26 to hear the case.
CHIKABAE UPDATES’ fake post has over 4,000 views. The channel was created on May 30, 2018.
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