President Rodrigo Duterte and US President-elect Donald Trump have been compared a number of times even during their respective country’s 2016 elections. Even Duterte himself cited the similarities between him and Trump, with one being quick to say expletives.
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When Duterte made his congratulatory phone call to Trump on December 2, his assistant Christopher “Bong” Go shared some photos during the call, describing the phone conversation between the two leaders as “very engaging and animated.” Duterte also revealed later that Trump told him he is “doing great” despite Americans criticizing him. This led to the Philippine president considering Trump as his “friend,” especially after that “encouraging” message from Trump.
But fake news sites wanted more out of the Trump-Duterte relationship as they made up stories about the two leaders. Their most recent lie was about a claim on how Trump allegedly told Japan leaders to support Duterte.
The article, which was picked up by viraldutertenews.blogspot.com, was shared by Facebook pages “Anti-PORK Barrel..etc” and “Ang Mga Kwento sa Kanto.”
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According to the article, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe allegedly revealed that Trump urged him to continue supporting Duterte, owing to the fact that Trump deemed the Filipino leader as the “force to help drive the world.”
But we’re going to sort out the real happenings and the lies in this article.
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It is true that Abe was among the first world leaders who arranged to meet Trump after the US election. Abe intended to assess Trump’s sincerity in carrying out, or not, his campaign rhetoric on Japan, which he criticized along with other American allies.
During the November 10 phone call between the two leaders, Mr. Abe reportedly told Mr. Trump that “a strong Japan-US alliance is an indispensable presence that supports peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.”
When Trump and Abe did meet in New York on November 17, Abe refused to reveal more details since the meeting was on “unofficial capacity,” seeing as how Trump still has to assume office.
“I conveyed my various views on different issues, but since he hasn’t assumed the office, I would like to refrain from touching on details,” CNN quoted Abe.
When we also checked the article posted on viraldutertenews.blogspot.com claiming that Trump urged Abe to support Duterte, we found out that its source is a website called bbc101.co.uk. We clicked the link but the page is no longer available.
We tried to Google bbc101.co.uk and was redirected to a website with a different URL – za.i-telecast.com.
While the website posts some real news articles, it also posts several fake articles, many of which were about Duterte.
Unlike what viraldutertenews and bbc101.co.uk claimed, Trump did not ask Abe to support Duterte and he did not describe Duterte as the “force to help drive the world.” These are all fake claims.
Sources: (rappler.com, news.abs-cbn.com, cnnphilippines.com, nytimes.com, edition.ccn.com)
Be Informed. Beat the Trolls, Share the Truth!
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