A fake quote card of presidential candidate Vice President Leni Robredo about stopping President Rodrigo Duterte’s drug war has resurfaced on Facebook.
The made-up quote attributed to Robredo read: “Wala akong sinabi na ‘ihinto’ ang drug war ang sabi ko ‘not to continue’ (I didn’t say ‘stop’ the drug war, I only said ‘not to continue’).”
No official statements or news reports quoted Robredo saying this.
The fabricated statement twisted Robredo’s reaction to a news headline in October 2019 that claimed Duterte’s drug war should be halted.
In an Oct. 27, 2019 interview with broadcaster Ely Salazar on the RMN DZXL 558 radio program Biserbisyong Leni, Robredo said: “Wala akong sinabi Ka Ely [na] ihinto…. ’Yung headline mali kasi binalikan ko yung video, binalikan ko ’yung transcript. Wala akong sinabing ihinto ’yung kampanya, ang sinabi ko i-tweak. At ’pag i-tweak, i-assess lang kung ano ’yung mali.”
(Ka Ely, I didn’t say that the [drug war should be] stopped… The headline was wrong because I went back to the video, I went back to the transcript. I didn’t say anything about stopping the [drug war] campaign. I said it needed tweaking. And if we tweak something, we assess what’s wrong.)
Facebook page Crabbler (created on Dec. 15, 2013, under the name Inday Affected), revived the fake quote card on March 22, a day after President Rodrigo Duterte ranted against the International Criminal Court for investigating his drug war that killed thousands of people. The fabricated graphic garnered a total of over 8,500 interactions.
Several netizens jokingly wrote in the comments section about suffering from migraine after reading the nonsensical quote attributed to Robredo. A few pointed out that the quote card is “fake news.” Rappler previously debunked a similar claim in late January.
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