Former California Governor and Hollywood actor Arnold Schwarzenegger allegedly came to President Rodrigo Duterte’s defense when he was slammed by some US lawmakers after US President Donald Trump invited Duterte to the White House.
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The reports with the title “Arnold Schwarzenegger defends Pres Duterte: “Only the Filipinos have the right over their President” have been shared over 15,000 times. One of the websites that carried the report is the fake news site pinoybalita.net that we’ve tagged as such after publishing a long list of fake stories.
Another story related to the Hollywood actor had him calling Duterte as a “real starring fighter.” The story, as picked up by kdramaislifeu.info, has already been shared almost 13,000 times.
Facebook pages, such as Pres. Duterte ang Agila ng Davao, and individual users were also helping spread what we later discovered to be fake news as they shared the reports online.
We also found the story picked up by kickerdaily.com, although it is no longer accessible, as of writing. The website may have realized that the story is fake so they deleted it.
When we checked the over 4-minute long YouTube video uploaded by pinoybalita.net, we found that it is a combination of two stories that forced to link Schwarzenegger to Duterte, even with the use of fake quotes.
According to the video, Schwarzenegger called Duterte a “real starring and a fighter’ in modern times and added that the Philippine president showed that his priority will always be to “protect the people,” regardless of the cost of doing so.
We Googled the quote and found one suspicious source, the fake news site newsaljazeera.com.
We traced the story back to the fake news site and found it with the title “Arnold Schwarzenegger tags Duterte as ‘real starring fighter” published on June 12.
We have busted stories from newsaljazeera.com, such as those about US Presidential son Donald Trump Jr. allegedly saying he sometimes felt that Duterte is his president and Hollywood actor and wrestler Dwayne Johnson calling Duterte an ‘inspiration.’
The continuation of the YouTube video was claiming that Schwarzenegger defended Duterte against the backlash from the US congress and called him ‘real starring and a fighter.’
We found the rest of what the YouTube video was claiming as Schwarzenegger’s defense of Duterte in the satirical blog of pinoyobserver.com.
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The actor allegedly admonished US Congress for concluding that Duterte does not deserve to engage with the US and reminded the American lawmakers that only the Filipinos have constitutional power over him. Schwarzenegger insisted that Duterte has the right to diplomatic engagements as the Filipinos’ representative and it doesn’t matter whether the US Congress approves of Duterte or not.
It’s interesting to note that the Schwarzenegger line directly quoted in the title of the story was no longer found within the story.
We noted that the Pinoy Observer copied what they framed as Schwarzenegger’s statement from newsaljazeera.com, which said “Duterte has depicted that, his top most priority as president was to “protect the people” at what ever cost.”
Since newsaljazeera.com’s story was published on June 12, while that of Pinoy Observer was only posted on July 28, this meant that the satirical blog simply copied off that ‘statement’ from the fake news site.
What’s true with Pinoy Observer’s story about the actor defending Duterte is what US lawmakers Rep. Jackie Speier and Rep. James McGovern said about Duterte and Trump inviting him to the White House.
What aren’t true are those claims about Schwarzenegger calling Duterte “real starring and a fighter” and admonishing the US Congress for saying that they will not engage with Duterte. Schwarzenegger has never made such statements about Duterte and a 4-minute long YouTube video and some blogs are not enough to back up such grand claims linking the former politician and Hollywood actor to Duterte.
Fake news writers have long tried to link big names to Duterte, especially during the campaign period leading to the May 2016 elections. The most prominent fake story about it would likely be the fake meme that circulated showing Singaporean Prime Minister endorsing Duterte as a presidential candidate, which the Singaporean government denied.
Sources: ( philstar.com )
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