Three Facebook (FB) videos claim that nuns from a monastery in Pasig are making and selling an anti-aging cream. These are fake.
The videos actually promote an unregistered cosmetic product.
Posted on June 14 and 16, the scams by FB pages Thimphu Luciabullar, Drama Crea All The Power and Diola Cenu Mole bore captions that read:
“Uncover ang Hiwaga ng Kagandahan mula sa mga madre ng Monasteryo ng Santa Clara sa Pasig: Paano ang kanilang natatanging produkto ay tumutulong sa mga kababaihan na labanan ang pagtanda.”
(Uncover the magic of beauty from the nuns of the Monastery of Sta. Clara in Pasig: How their unique product helps women to fight aging.)
“Wala po kaming nababalitaan kasi wala naman kaming ginagawang ganoon (We haven’t heard [about that claim] because we aren’t making such a product),” Jovit Nasol, parish clerk of Sta. Clara de Montefalco Parish Church, told VERA Files Fact Check via phone call on June 20.
Nasol said there are no nuns that live at the parish and neither do they have a church store. He added that it provides only ossuaries, where bones of the dead are placed.
There is no Santa Clara monastery in Pasig, but there is a Real Monasterio de Santa Clara de Manila in nearby Katipunan Avenue in Quezon City.
The circulating videos carried links to bogus websites (firstclick.pro, vaugh.lichtspiel-fashion.com) that sell a product called Retinlift Skin Cell Regeneration Anti-Aging Cream. The sites ask for people’s names and contact numbers for “delivery” of the product.
Retinlift is not a registered cosmetic product with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Unregistered products may contain heavy metals or ingredients not allowed in cosmetic products, the FDA stated in a Feb. 16 advisory about the cream.
Two nuns were shown in the videos pouring brown liquid into brown cosmetics bottles. This footage came from a May 18, 2016 video of Spanish-language news organization Telemundo about non-religious nuns in California who grow and cultivate medical marijuana.
The three bogus videos got over 170,242 interactions in total. These appeared two days after an American skincare company entered the Philippine market.
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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.)
