Two weeks after popular cardiologist and health advocate Doc Willie Ong filed his certificate of candidacy for senator, a couple of posts on Facebook (FB) claimed that he had died and showed photos of his wife in tears and of a coffin being carried by a group of men.
This is not true. On Oct. 9, Ong shared the good news about his ongoing fight against cancer, saying his sarcoma has significantly shrunk after six weeks of treatment in Singapore. He was also seen in an Oct. 12 FB live video with his wife, Liza.
Published on Oct. 12 and 13, these erroneous posts were published by a single FB page. One of them bore the following text:
“Doc Liza Ong NAPAIYAK ng SALUBUNGIN ang LABl ni Doc Willie Ong matapos MAIUWI ng Pilipinas! (Doc Liza Ong cried after receiving the remains of Doc Willie Ong in the Philippines)”
The false claim showed a black-and-white image of Ong lying with his eyes closed and another image of two people wearing blue overalls and protective equipment while carrying an orange body bag. Another photo shows a group of men carrying a coffin out of an airplane.
The images were given the wrong context to mislead social media users.
The black-and-white photo of Ong was actually a screenshot taken in his Sept. 14 vlog documenting his fight against cancer. In the video, his wife can be heard talking about the back pains her husband was enduring before he was ultimately admitted to a hospital.
The image of people wearing blue overalls while carrying a body bag was from a 2020 TRT World report on COVID-diagnosed Turkish citizens being brought back from Sweden via ambulance planes.
After Ong made public his battle against cancer, death hoaxes like this followed. Last month, VERA Files debunked a similar claim. (READ VERA Files FACT CHECK: Cardiologist Willie Ong still undergoing chemotherapy)
FB page Magsasaka Mabuhay Ka (created on July 18, 2017) published the spurious posts, collectively garnering over 690 reactions, 650 comments and 25 shares. The post could have reached 1.4 million FB users, or the total number of followers of the page.
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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.)
