FACT CHECK: No Marcos order for Mel Tiangco to leave the country
Claim: President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered news anchor Mel Tiangco to leave the Philippines.
Rating: FALSE
Why we fact-checked this: The claim was made in the title and thumbnail of a YouTube video posted on July 30, which has 251,000 views, 8,600 likes, and 2,359 comments as of writing. The channel that posted the video has 746,000 subscribers and has been fact-checked by Rappler multiple times.
The video’s title reads: “JUST IN: Mga MEDIA Natameme Grabe! ang NANGYARI kay MEL TIANGCO Nataranta sa UTOS ng PRES MARCOS!”
(Just in: The media was left speechless! Mel Tiangco was shocked by the order of President Marcos!)
The video thumbnail also shows pictures of Marcos and Tiangco with the text “Pinalayas sa Pilipinas” (Expelled from the Philippines).
The bottom line: No official statements were released on Marcos’ Facebook or Twitter accounts, on Radio Television Malacañang, or the Office of the President regarding any supposed order for Tiangco to leave the country. Instead, the content of the video mainly showed comments from netizens urging Marcos to take action against the journalist for supposedly insulting him.
These comments were triggered by a viral clip of Tiangco during her July 24 coverage of Marcos’ State of the Nation Address (SONA) on the GMA news program 24 Oras, where she supposedly uttered the word “pwe” which was interpreted as a sign of disrespect towards Marcos.
Video from the GMA Integrated News YouTube channel does not show Tiangco making the exclamation.
Online disinformation against journalists: Aside from Tiangco, another journalist – ABS-CBN newscaster Karen Davila – has been subjected to this type of online disinformation.
Davila was supposedly ordered by Marcos to leave the country after she allegedly made a statement implying that she would migrate if Marcos won the presidential election. However, Davila never made any such statement. – Jezreel Ines/Rappler.com
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