As citizens of the Philippines abroad began early voting for the country’s next president, a video was viewed tens of thousands of times in social media posts that claim it shows a woman in Hong Kong complaining her vote for frontrunner Ferdinand Marcos Jr was wrongly counted for his top job rival Leni Robredo. This is false: the video was doctored to add the reference to Robredo. The unedited version has circulated online since at least 2016. The Philippine elections agency told AFP it had not received complaints of wrongly counted votes during early overseas voting in the 2022 presidential election as of April 29.
The video was shared on Facebook on April 14. It has been viewed more than 35,000 times.
“Idols, cheating has already started,” reads the video’s caption.
Tagalog-language text overlaid on the video translates to English as: “VOTED FOR MARCOS. BUT [THE VOTE] WAS REGISTERED FOR LEN-LEN.”
“Len-Len” is a pejorative name for incumbent vice president Robredo frequently used by supporters of Marcos Jr.
Robredo made a last-minute decision to enter the presidential race in October after Marcos Jr declared his candidacy.
That set up a rematch with her rival in the 2016 vice presidential contest that she narrowly won.
Read the full story on AFP Fact Check.