At least two websites are carrying this story about how former US President George W. Bush allegedly said that the ‘personally’ knows President Rodrigo Duterte so he also knows that the Philippine president will never give up.
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The story was published by newsfoxchannel.com and aljazeerachannel.com. The problem is that just by their URLs, you can already tell that they are trying to mimic the URLs of established broadcasting networks Fox and Al Jazeera. Moreover, Meme Buster also debunked a few fake articles from these websites, proving that they cannot be trusted.
We can no longer access the story by aljazeerachannel.com but a certain netizen posted screenshots of its story on Facebook.
Images via Facebook
We found out that it is exactly the same story published on newsfoxchannel.com. According to the story, Bush, whose supposed birthday also falls on June 12, the Philippine’s Independence Day, remarked that Duterte is “consistent” and “never gives up on his missions.”
The story even quoted Bush saying: “… have known President Duterte for long. He never gives up.”
It also added that Bush turned 93 on June 12. He reportedly said that Duterte has turned the spotlight on the Philippines with the way he is running the country, something that many people appreciate. The story, which also described Bush as the 41st American president, further said that it is unfair for foreigners to criticize Duterte because of every leader’s unique way of running his or her respective country.
However, the story confused George W. Bush, the son and the 43rd American president, whose birthday fall on July 6, with his father, George H. W. Bush, the 41st American president, whose birthday is every June 12. The website newsfoxchannel.com even used the younger Bush’s photo in the article.
They even mixed up the father Bush and son Bush, so how much more can you trust them to deliver a real story about how the older Bush, as per the details in the story, personally know Duterte?
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We tried looking for reports connecting the older Bush with President Duterte or about Bush uttering a statement about Duterte, but we could not find any. It is likely that aljazeerachannel.com and newsfoxchannel.com just made up the story. They have done it before when they published the fake stories about the French President calling Duterte a role model and Senator Antonio Trillanes planning to hold a hunger strike for Senator Leila de Lima’s freedom.
And the story has made its rounds online, but in its Filipino version after it was translated by the philippinebalitadaily.com and posted on Facebook by the page “Duterte Para Sa Pagbabago.” The Filipino title now says, “George W. Bush: “Matagal Ko Ng Kilala Si Duterte, Hindi Siya Sumusuko.” As of writing, the Filipino post has already gained over 500 shares, 1,200 reactions.
As what we’ve said before, we’re seeing a trend of some websites obtaining fake news in English and translating them to Filipino to make them almost difficult to distinguish as fake news. Watch out for such websites and make sure to verify the stories that you find online first before reacting or believing in them.
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