FALSE

Senator and vice-presidential candidate Francis Pangilinan voted in favor of the Bayanihan to Heal as One Act in 2020, contrary to claims on social media that he did not.

His tweet on July 28, 2020, however, states that he voted for Senate Bill No. 1418 seeking to grant President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic with “serious reservations” and “with both a warning and an admonition to the implementors of the law.”

The Senate unanimously passed the bill on March 24, 2020. Duterte signed the law, Republic Act No. 11469, the same day. The law took effect the day after.

It was RA 11494 or the Bayanihan to Recover as One Act that Pangilinan voted against, citing news of alleged corruption in the state health insurer, Philhealth, according to a July 28, 2020 press release.

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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.

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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