A fake quote card of Pope Francis allegedly praising and expressing support for presidential aspirant Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is reaching thousands of people on Facebook (FB).
The graphic, first published on Nov. 8, featured a photo of Francis next to this fabricated statement: “BBM is an intelligent leader. I hope he win (sic) in 2022.” The date indicated in the graphic shows the pope supposedly said this on “November 3, 2021.”
The pontiff has made no such remark. Neither has such a statement been reported by any local or international media.
The circulating graphic is a doctored version of a quote card published by ABS-CBN on Nov. 4. It originally showed a statement the pope made on Nov. 3 on his Twitter account, telling the public to reflect on one’s own flaws before judging others.
The original text from ABS-CBN’s graphic was covered in black and replaced with the fabricated quote. The media network’s logos were also cropped out.
The fake quote card emerged the same day ten professionals filed a petition-in-intervention before the Commission on Elections, supplementing an earlier petition seeking to cancel Marcos’ certificate of candidacy for the 2022 elections.
POGINGSANDRO next generation MARCOS Pa rin, an FB group for supporters of one of Marcos’ sons, was created in April 2016. The copy of the fake quote card posted in the group received nearly 4,200 interactions before it was taken down on Nov. 11. Several copies of the fake quote card reuploaded by other netizens continue to circulate on FB.
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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.)
