A satirical Facebook (FB) post claiming Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso will be the new mouthpiece of rival presidential candidate Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. is misleading netizens.
On April 20, the FB page Superficial Gazette of the Republic of the Philippines published a satirical post that bore the headline: “ISKO MORENO REPLACES VIC RODRIGUEZ AS MARCOS SPOKESPERSON.”
On its About section, the page, created in September 2016, calls itself a “satire/parody and political commentary platform.” It imitates the name of the Official Gazette, the country’s official journal.
Part of the post’s caption claimed lawyer Vic Rodriguez announced in a press conference that Domagoso is to succeed him as Marcos’ spokesperson as a show of “unity” after the Manila mayor repeatedly criticized Vice President Leni Robredo.
No such press conference happened nor was any announcement ever made.
Despite the hashtags #SatireNews and #parody indicated in the post, some netizens believed the story was true and said Domagoso made himself a “laughing stock” by accepting the position. But others in the comment section emphasized that the post was a joke.
Meanwhile, other pages re-uploaded Superficial Gazette’s post but did not indicate in its caption that it was satirical.
The post appeared a few hours after Domagoso called Robredo the “godmother of bullies” after her camp allegedly asked him and other candidates to withdraw from the presidential race, following the April 17 press conference where Domagoso urged Robredo to back out of the election.
The satirical post has garnered more than 22,000 reactions, 1,500 comments, and 3,300 shares. It was reposted by FB pages Change Scamming (April 27, 2010), Injoy (Dec. 13, 2020), and Kalimbahin (Feb. 14, 2022), which collectively garnered more than 3,000 reactions, 530 comments, and 490 shares.
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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.)