A slideshow of the Kuwait Towers and airshow photos has been misrepresented as Kuwait’s celebration for Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and running mate Sara Duterte’s victory in Monday's election.
In a Tiktok video posted by user Yanz on May 10, photos of the famous towers lit up in red and green and fighter jets with plumes of red and green smoke were compiled and overlaid with the text, “Kuwait Celebration for BBM-Sara Victory.”
Its caption reads:
sabay na nakikipag diwang ang Kuwait 🇰🇼 sa pagka-panalo ng newly elected President and Vice President natin ❤️💚🇵🇭 #bbmsarah2022 #bbm #saraduterte #bbmfor2022president🇵🇭 #fyp (Kuwait is simultaneously celebrating the win of our newly elected President and Vice President. ❤️💚🇵🇭 #bbmsarah2022 #bbm #saraduterte #bbmfor2022president🇵🇭 #fyp)
Green and red are Marcos and Duterte’s campaign colors. BBM is one of Marcos’ nicknames.
A reverse search shows that the photo of the Kuwait Towers in the TikTok video was posted on Twitter during the United Arab Emirates’ national day in 2018. Kuwait Towers is a famous tourist landmark that symbolizes Kuwait’s economic resurgence.
Meanwhile, a web search yielded many similar airshow photos, but no airshow from Kuwait was reported in the last two days.
FactRakers earlier fact-checked a claim about Kingdom Tower in Riyadh in red supposedly as an endorsement of Marcos’ bid. The Kingdom Tower had been flashing red lights even before Marcos' candidacy.
Marcos and Duterte have not been proclaimed winners but lead the race both with over 31 million votes from the 98.17% reporting precincts as of midnight of May 11, according to the Comelec unofficial-partial results. Congress plans to begin the canvassing of presidential and vice presidential votes on May 24.
The same photos and claims were being shared by personal accounts and public pages on Facebook such as OFW ng Middle East and Marino tayo Ph.
The video has gained more than 180,000 likes and 2,000 comments as of writing. (JL)