FALSE

The media reach and engagement of this year’s presidential candidates have been mistaken by a Facebook page as vote counts showing Leni Robredo leading the race.

Facebook page Draft King Official posted at 6:17 p.m. on May 9 a photo showing Robredo ahead of the candidates with a count of more than 15 million, or 2.2 million ahead of Marcos.

Counting of votes hadn’t started and no tally had been released at the time the post was published. It started after polls closed at 7 p.m.

The original photo was from Bilang Pilipino 2022 and accompanied TV5 journalist Jes delos Santos’ report about the media reach of the presidentiables, including posts from different social media platforms, in the week leading to the May 9 elections.

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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.

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