Is former President Fidel V. Ramos a drug user?
At least, that’s what an article has been claiming and it was shared by several Duterte fan pages on Facebook, such as Duterte News Global, Moro for Duterte, and Sara Duterte Solid Supporters. It was also shared by the Marcos fan page Marcos Warriors.
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According to the articles published by newstrendph, du30news, Ramos was rushed to the hospital on “Tuesday” (no specified date) for dengue fever, which led to the discovery that he tested positive for drugs.
“The drug test was among series of tests conducted by doctors to ascertain his health condition and provide necessary medical care. Ramos, who is hospitalised and feeling very weak challenged the results but other series of repeated tests have proven the same,” the articles claimed.
The articles even claimed to have a Filipino correspondent, who reported about Ramos’ critical condition.
Aside from the articles being exactly the same when published by the blogs enumerated above, they also pointed to one source – a blog called USA Radio (usa-radio.com). It was also shared by the Facebook page called The Editor.
We tried checking other sources to verify this news. Given Ramos’s remaining prominence as a former president, this kind of news should have been reported by major news outlets in the Philippines. Moreover, Ramos recently came out with two opinion pieces commenting on President Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency. There were even constructive criticisms in those articles after he assessed that the Philippines is “losing badly” within Duterte’s first 1000 days in office.
When the first part of Ramos’ opinion piece first came out, some netizens even joked that soon enough, Ramos would likely be linked to drugs or be accused of being a drug coddler. True enough, this article has come out and it seemed like Duterte’s supporters believed it.
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We did not find any other source confirming usa-radio’s claims about Ramos and his alleged ‘drug addiction.’ We also checked the site and it turned out to have a generic “About Us” page that says it is “targeted at breaking news and rumors.” It also claimed to be based in New York with “offices in 17 countries.”
We’re quite familiar with this kind of “About Us” disclaimer because it’s the same format and wordings used by another site with fake news, DW-TV3 (now News24-TV). Look!
As of posting, there was no news, except from these blogs, about former president Ramos being rushed to the hospital for dengue or having tested positive for drugs. It’s a fake story!
Be Informed. Beat the Trolls, Share the Truth!
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