Last Friday, December 2, President Rodrigo Duterte called US President-elect Donald Trump to congratulate him over his win. Duterte said that he felt a “good sense of rapport” with Trump after the late night, seven-minute phone call. He even assured Trump that the US-PH ties will be maintained.
But now, with these articles circulating online, has Trump taken that “rapport” with Duterte to another level after he allegedly threatened Fil-Am leader Loida Nicolas Lewis to respect the Philippine president or leave the US?
Duterte and Marcos fan pages on Facebook have been sharing articles, entitled “Donald Trump – Loida Nicolas Lewis: You Either Respect Duterte or Leave America.” The articles claimed that Trump warned Lewis not to disrespect Duterte, whom he reportedly praised as doing what he could to fight drugs, corruption and injustice in the Philippines.
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The articles even said that Trump accused Nicolas Lewis of working with drug lords and those who want to resist change in the country.
The articles also attributed this quote to Trump: “Who hell do you think you are to disrespect the will of the people? Duterte is democratically elected. People desperately want change and it has just started. You and your yellow cohorts will do just about everything to grab power even at the cost of destroying the current government, I will not allow Duterte’s efforts to be derailed by selfish people like you, we know you are paid to taint Duterte’s name, i will evict you from America if you continue to disrespect the Philippines President never again to yellow government. Never again to incompetence and indifference. Never again to corruption, stay firm brother Duterte.”
These articles were picked up by blogs like newstitans.com, pinoyspeak.info, and newsfileph.com, among others have been shared thousands of times over, with comments truly believing in the articles’ claims. When we checked the sources of the articles, they all point to a website called fox-channel.com.
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Upon closer look at fox-channel.com, we found that it is fond of making up stories and have several fictional articles involving the Philippines. The website claimed Senator Leila De Lima paid an Indian witch to confuse Duterte and that she is banned from the UK (with her name spelled “Laile”); that Trump said it will take 50 years before Filipinos will get another Duterte and that he called Vice President Leni Robredo a fool; and several other fake articles.
We verified the statement that the article claimed to have come from Trump but could not find it being quoted by credible sources.
Trump has been making controversial statements lately, but not about defending Duterte and threatening Nicolas Lewis. Instead, he was occupied with Twitter, recently slamming union leader Chuck Jones and criticizing Saturday Night Live’s episode imitating him, calling it “unwatchable” and “totally biased.”
In fact, former Secretary of Labor Robert Relch pleaded with Trump to stop making “petty, thin-skinned and vindictive” tweets against his critics.
After Trump singled out union leader Jones in one of his tweets, Jones started receiving abusive calls and threats. This is a possible violation of Twitter’s rules that users “may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others,” which is why the social media company is not ruling out the possibility of banning Trump for life.
Yes, Trump is busy making statements and slamming people, but not in Duterte’s defense. He has not told Nicolas Lewis to start “respecting” Duterte or risk getting evicted from the US, a threat that even seems doubtful.
Trump did promise to deport millions of people but he was referring to illegal immigrants and Nicolas Lewis isn’t one. In fact, she has written books on US immigration law, including “How to Get a Green Card that became a bestseller. She was also the first Asian-American to pass the American bar despite not being educated in the US. She can practice law in New York and the Philippines.
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All these false claims about Trump’s “threat” to Nicolas Lewis just proved that whoever is behind fox-channel.com has too much time in their hands to write a lot of fictional stories about Duterte, Trump and De Lima and pass them off as news, which many netizens sadly fall for. From now on, beware of fox-channel.com’s articles. They might be feeding you another hoax.
Sources: (washingtonpost.com, time.com, independent.co.uk, huffingtonpost.com, news.abs-cbn.com, facebook.com)
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