A photo showing presidential aspirant Leni Robredo and her running mate Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan posing with their campaign sign inside a cemetery is edited.
A reverse image search shows that the original photo of Robredo and Pangilinan was taken during their campaign in Ormoc City on March 29 while the photo of the cemetery in the background was taken by photographer Lynzy Billing on March 23, 2018 and published in an article of The Guardian.
The cemetery was identified by Billing as the Navotas Cemetery.
The doctored photo has been circulating on Twitter, Facebook and the online meme community 9gag.com after Robredo called on her supporters to ramp up house-to-house campaigns in hopes of reaching out to more voters.
Twitter user The News and Story Board posted it on April 29 with the caption:
Bakit hindi kayo sa Mandaluyong sa loob mangampanya? Ano kinukuha niyo ang mga listahan ng patay (Why don’t you campaign inside Mandaluyong? Are you getting the list of those who are dead)?
The Mandaluyong reference is an inside joke that targets those who are receiving mental illness treatment inside the National Center for Mental Health located in Mandaluyong.
In a reply to a netizen asking if the photo was true, the user claimed that it was real and it was even posted on Robredo and Pangilinan’s official Facebook pages.
E, opo promise! sa official fb page nila naka-post yan ng bonggang-bongga e (Yes, promise! It’s posted on their official FB page).
Contrary to the claim, the doctored photo was never posted on the official Facebook pages of the vice president and the senator.
As of writing, the tweet has garnered 168 likes, 33 retweets and 32 quote tweets.
However, the same doctored photo was also tweeted and retweeted by bigger twitter accounts supporting presidential aspirant Ferdinand Marcos Jr. such as The Hitman and benign0, who have around 4,200 and 15,300 followers, respectively. (JV)