FALSE

Two Facebook posts falsely declared mayoral candidates Dale “Along” Malapitan and Antonio Trillanes IV as winners in the Caloocan City race hours before the polls closed and well before any official results were released.

At 5:58 p.m. on May 12, an anonymous post in the public Facebook group Caloocan City News and Updates prematurely claimed victory for Malapitan, the incumbent mayor. It said:

CONGRATS tapos na botohan panalo na si Mayor Malapitan (Congrats, the voting is over—Mayor Malapitan has already won)!

Earlier, at 5:06 p.m., Facebook user Apple Samantha Solano posted on her timeline that Trillanes was the new mayor:

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS 🎉🎈🥳🎈 TO MAYOR TRILLANES NEW MAYOR KASALANAN NG MGA LEADER YAN NI MAYOR ALONG KAYA NATALO NA BULSA BA NAMAN NILA UNG AYUDA EH DAPAT ANG SISIHIN JAN UNG MGA LEADER NI ALONG MALAPITAN MGA SAKIM KASE (It’s the fault of Mayor Along’s leaders—that’s why he lost. They were even pocketing the aid money. Along Malapitan’s leaders are to blame—they’re greedy).

Under Section 206, Article XVIII of the Omnibus Election Code, vote counting begins only after voting and must take place publicly at the polling precinct by the Board of Election Inspectors. No official winner may be proclaimed or assumed before that process concludes.

Read the full story on FactRakers.org.

Share this

Share on Pinterest Share on LinkedIn Share on Reddit

FactRakers is a Philippines-based fact-checking initiative of journalism majors at the University of the Philippines-Diliman working under the supervision of Associate Professor Yvonne T. Chua of the University of the Philippines’ Journalism Department. Associate Professor Ma. Diosa Labiste, also of the Journalism Department, serves as editorial consultant.

FactRakers' fact-checks also include those produced by Tinig ng Plaridel — the official student publication of the UP College of Media and Communication — and the UP Journalism Club.

The name of the initiative, coined from the words “fact” and “raker,” is inspired by the term “muckrakers,” first used in the early 1900s by American president Theodore Roosevelt to express his annoyance at progressive, reform-minded journalists at the time.

factrakers.org