As dozens of rallies were staged across the Philippines after the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte on a crime against humanity charge, a video was falsely shared in social media posts claiming it showed one of the protests. The footage in fact shows a march led by an influential religious sect opposing moves to impeach Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte.
“Duterte is arrested and Marcos is in big trouble,” reads a simplified Chinese Weibo post shared on March 15, 2025.
“Millions of Filipinos took to the streets to support Lao Du,” it adds, using the Chinese nickname for the former Philippine leader. “How should this farce created by the Marcos government end?”
Attached to the post is aerial footage of an avenue filled with white-shirted marchers, followed by a clip of people gathered to express support for the former leader.
Similar posts also surfaced in X and Douyin after Duterte was arrested in Manila and transported to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague on March 12 (archived link).
The 79-year-old faces a crime against humanity charge stemming from his years-long crackdown on narcotics that rights groups estimate killed tens of thousands of mostly poor men, often without proof they were linked to drugs.
Local media citing Philippine police figures reported over 50 rallies were staged following Duterte’s arrest, drawing in around 50,000 demonstrators (archived here and here).
An AFP journalist in Manila identified the location of the circulating video as a section of Roxas Boulevard in the capital (archived link).
But as of March 19, no official report indicates a rally against Duterte’s arrest was staged there and attended by millions as the false posts allege.
Read the full story on AFP Fact Check.