FALSE

A Facebook post recycled a 2019 photo to falsely claim that local candidates in the Visayas and Mindanao supporting former president Rodrigo Duterte and China are involved in vote buying.

The text overlaid on the image posted on May 12 by user Migz Oznola reads:

Mga lokal na kandidato na pro-Duterte o Team China sa VisMin nahuling namimili ng boto. COMELEC ilalabas and listahan (Local candidates who are pro-Duterte or Team China in VisMin caught buying votes. COMELEC to release the list).

The photo originally appeared in a 2019 ABS-CBN article about the arrest of 28 individuals in Negros Occidental for alleged vote buying during that year’s elections.

The post also falsely implies that the image was produced by pro-Duterte media outlet SMNI. There is no evidence it was ever published on SMNI’s website or Facebook page.

The photo inaccurately lists Magdaleno “Magsie” Peña as a mayoral candidate in the photo. He is not running for office in 2025, but his son Miguel is a candidate in Pulupandan, Negros Occidental.

Antonio Esteban “Tony” Suachengco, listed as vice mayoral candidate, died in 2022 of cardiac arrest.

A Rappler photo of the same vote-buying case also resurfaced online and is being used in multiple misleading posts alleging vote buying in different regions.

Read the full story on FactRakers.org.

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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.

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