A TikTok video spliced together two different clips to make it appear that presidential candidate and senator Manny Pacquiao’s solution to the slow internet speed in the Philippines is to believe in God. The circulating clip is fake.
A reader requested VERA Files Fact Check to look into the 18-second video that was originally published by TikTok user genzphilippines — now nobitamarcosph — but which has already been taken down. The clip was reuploaded on Feb. 9 by page Textgasm. on Facebook (FB), where it has gathered 325,000 views so far.
The manipulated video combined the question and answer from two entirely different and unrelated interviews. The first part of the spliced video featured TV host Korina Sanchez asking the question to presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.: “Paano mo palalakasin ang wifi dito sa Pilipinas (How would you speed up the wifi [connection] here in the Philippines)?”
It then showed a clip of Pacquiao saying: “I believe that nothing is impossible with God. The God that I serve is the creator of Heaven and Earth, creator of everything. How can we doubt that?”
Sanchez’ part in the fake TikTok video was lifted from her interview with Marcos on her show Rated Korina that was first aired on Feb. 5.
Meanwhile, Pacquiao’s clip was from his 2016 interview with American journalist Graham Bensinger where he was asked what would happen when he is “no longer boxing and [doesn’t] have big money purses.”
Some netizens pointed out in the comments section of Textgasm.’s post that the video was edited and carried spliced clips. But several users took and shared the clip as fact, mocking Pacquiao for involving God in the country’s internet problem.
Textgasm. did not include in its post any indication that the video is not legitimate. It also carried in its caption a link mislabeled as the “full video” of Pacquiao’s answer, but which when clicked, redirects to an e-commerce website.
The fake clip circulated a day after Pacquiao and running mate House Deputy Speaker Lito Atienza held their proclamation rally in General Santos City as the official campaign period for candidates for national posts in the May polls kicked off last Feb. 8.
Textgasm.’s post already received 978 reactions, 94 comments, and over 4,300 shares from netizens. Four other accounts — FB pages Bongbong Marcos Loyalists and Soc-Med Influence, and TikTok accounts enzo_072121 and kaizerconstello — also reuploaded the spurious clip. Their posts collectively got more than 15,000 views and 590 engagements.
Textgasm. was created in November 2017.
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