Four Facebook (FB) pages shared a fabricated quote card on how to save money and attributed it to San Miguel Corp. (SMC) Vice Chairman and President Ramon Ang. The “fake advice” was used to link to an e-commerce site, promote a financial investment service and endorse a pair of sneakers.
“Alam niyo best strategy to save money? You go to sleep! libre pa! Wag gumala. Wag mag travel every month. Wag na mag starbucks,” read the concocted quote card attributed to Ang, who is also SMC chief executive officer.
(You know what’s the best strategy to save money? You go to sleep! It’s free! Don’t wander. Don’t travel every month. Don’t go to Starbucks.)
“Mr. Ramon S. Ang never said the statements attributed to him in this graphic,” San Miguel Corp. said in an Oct. 3 email to VERA Files Fact Check.
The original quote card, published on Sept. 20 by Facebook (FB) page Pilipinas, bears a different quote that Ang said in a Sept. 14 interview with broadcast personality Anthony Taberna:
“‘Yung pera hindi mo madadala, kaya huwag mong diyosin ang pera. ‘Yung pera is meant to be shared (You cannot bring your money, so don’t treat money as a god. Money is meant to be shared).”
The fabricated graphics appeared two days after FB page Kicks Out – Davao published its altered version of the Pilipinas quote card on Sept. 24 to advertise their sneakers.
Posts from FB pages Financial Growth PH (created on Feb. 26, 2021), Korek (created on June 13, 2021), Metro Headlines (created on Jan. 27, 2019), and Financially Snappy (created on Nov. 7, 2019) got a total of over 96,711 interactions. Financial Growth PH and Financially Snappy are financial services-related FB pages, while Metro Headlines and Korek linked the fake quote card to Lazada, an e-commerce site.
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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.)
