At least three Facebook (FB) videos wrongly claimed that Sen. Risa Hontiveros called President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. immature, following his administration’s decision to disengage with the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is misleading. The opposition senator never directed such a remark against the president.
At the start of a 10-minute video uploaded by an FB page on July 22, a vlogger said:
“Parang bata daw si President Bongbong Marcos sabi ni Risa Hontiveros. Nagtatantrums lang daw ang presidente dahil dito sa naganap sa pag-disengage sa ICC.”
(Risa Hontiveros says President Bongbong Marcos is acting like a child. She said the president is just having tantrums over disengaging with the ICC.)
In a July 20 CNN Philippines interview, Hontiveros did say that disengaging with the ICC was an immature stance. The remark was in reference to the administration and not Marcos himself.
Responding to a question on the government’s decision to stop cooperating with the Netherlands-based court, Hontiveros said around the 18:30 mark:
“Disengaging even from communication is a very immature stance. It’s not the stance of a mature administration which claims to be governing a democracy. It’s not the stance of a country that is seeking more and wider alliances in the world dahil napakaraming mga bansa ay either miyembro ng ICC or at least nagco-cooperate sa ganitong mga proseso para sa hustisya (because so many countries are either members of the ICC or at least cooperating with them for due process) on the global stage.”
Nowhere in the 30-minute interview did Hontiveros directly call Marcos as childish or immature, as the videos claimed. Neither did she say that the president was throwing tantrums over the ICC.
Two FB pages repeated the same claim on videos uploaded on July 23. One bore the caption: “Isip bata raw ang pangulo sabi ni risa hontiverous (sic) (The president is childish, said Risa Hontiveros).” Another had a superimposed text on the screen saying “Sen. Risa Hontiveros to PBBM-parang bata (childish) ‘Immature’ for disengaging ICC.”
All three videos also passed off a screenshot of a July 21 news article by Politiko that carried the headline “Parang bata! (Like a child!) Hontiveros slams PH move to disengage from ICC” as proof that the senator called Marcos immature. The article never mentioned that Hontiveros made the remark against the president.
The misleading videos were posted in the wake of the ICC’s July 18 decision to continue its probe against alleged crimes against humanity in the bloody anti-drug campaign of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Uploaded by FB pages Coach Jarret (created on May 22, 2019), Mimaa Alicia (April 21, 2020) and Kababayan Viral PH (Oct. 17, 2021), the three videos collectively have 53,900 views, 2,800 reactions, 1,058 comments and 292 shares.
Two of the clips were also uploaded on YouTube channels Coach Jarret and Mimaa Alicia Comments where it garnered around 30,000 views so far.
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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.)
