Several hours after polling precincts closed on May 9, a fabricated screenshot of an alleged report from GMA News went viral and showed Vice President Leni Robredo in a head-to-head race with Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. for the presidential seat.
Robredo was shown with 19,706,564 votes from a partial and unofficial tally, while the latter had 20,084,651. This is not true.
GMA News issued a statement stating that the circulating screenshots are fake.
“Some screenshots of GMA’s Eleksyon 2022 television coverage and results website have been edited and manipulated to feature false election results, and spread on social media by unscrupulous accounts,” it wrote in an advisory published May 10 on its Facebook (FB) page.
The media organization also advised the public to visit its official social media accounts to get accurate information on the partial vote counts.
“We call on everyone to refrain from spreading misinformation,” it said.
The TV report seen in the circulating screenshot bears a timestamp of 9:25 p.m. Upon verification, GMA News’ report at that time showed Marcos indeed getting over 20 million votes while Robredo had 9,492,702 votes.
The 19-million figure came from the partial vote count of Marcos’ running mate Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio mentioned in the same report.
As of noon on Tuesday, May 10, 97.39% of election returns have been transmitted according to data from Comelec’s transparency servers. Marcos has obtained a significant lead, gathering 30.8 million of the votes against Robredo’s 14.7 million.
The circulating manipulated news report was posted two times on FB group Main Pop Girls Stanposting (created on Jan. 17, 2022) and by three other netizens. Their posts collectively garnered more than 3,130 reactions, 1,010 comments and 5,570 shares. A Twitter netizen also published the fake report and got more than 38,150 interactions.
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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.)