Pro-Duterte Facebook (FB) page VOVph posted on May 5 two doctored images falsely showing Vice President Leni Robredo posing in front of a building as Sen. Leila de Lima waved from behind bars.
The caption of the fake post read: “Bagong Pintura ang Selda #5 (Cell #5 is newly painted),” ostensibly referring to one of the cells at the Philippine National Police Custodial Center in Camp Crame, where the lawmaker is currently being held for drug charges.
The images are manipulated. A May 4 post on Robredo’s official FB page shows the original photos, which were taken in Lupi town, Camarines Sur, where beneficiaries of the vice president’s Angat Buhay housing project were taught how to paint their own houses.
To make it look like De Lima was waving from jail, metal bars were added to a Feb. 17, 2017 Getty Images photo of the senator waving from inside a vehicle.
This altered photo was superimposed on top of a window originally visible in Robredo’s photos, where the vice president could be seen posing with a woman in one picture, and some representatives from partner organizations in another.
In the unaltered images, the tarp of Boysen Paint bore the text “BOYSEN | The No. 1 Paint.” This was changed to read: “BOYSET | The No. 1 Pain” in VoVph’s version.
VOVph’s fabricated post was published a day after the Office of the Vice President published the housing project photos. It has since garnered over 5,300 reactions, 900 shares and 190 comments.
One netizen asked whether the images were “real or computer[iz]ed,” while another wrote, referring to de Lima: “How brazen. She’s proud to take a picture while in jail??!!”
This is not the first time VOVph, created in June 2016, published a piece of disinformation.
(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
