Following former Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest on March 11, his supporters online shared footage they claim shows a rebel leader issuing menacing remarks against Duterte’s once-ally President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. But the clip, which has racked up hundreds of thousands of views, is manipulated and actually depicts an old message of support for Marcos Jr.
“You should be scared, BBM,” reads the Tagalog-language caption of a Facebook reel shared on March 12, 2025, using the popular initials for the Southeast Asian nation’s president. It also included a hashtag calling for his impeachment.
The video in the post, viewed over 600,000 times, features an interview with rebel leader Nur Misuari. In one part of the clip, he says, “Bongbong Marcos” followed by a cut and then, “He was my number one enemy.”
The post surfaced after Duterte was arrested in Manila on an International Criminal Court warrant tied to his deadly war on drugs. He was handed over to the court’s custody in The Hague (archived link).
The 79-year-old faces a charge of “the crime against humanity of murder”, according to the court, for the crackdown that rights groups estimate killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
During his presidency, Duterte enlisted Misuari’s help to negotiate peace with various armed groups in the country’s troubled south (archived link).
Duterte’s supporters also shared the altered clip in TikTok posts that attacked Marcos Jr, who used to be his political ally until a spectacular meltdown in their family’s relations.
Marcos Sr
A reverse image search of keyframes on Google found the original interview published on the YouTube channel of VICE News on May 11, 2016 (archived link).
“Fighting for Peace in the Philippines: VICE News Interviews Nur Misuari,” says the video’s title.
An analysis of the interview reveals the “number one enemy” Misuari describes was the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos Sr — the current president’s father and namesake.
Read the full story on AFP Fact Check.