FACT CHECK: Kenya president didn’t say Duterte is ‘strongest man in the world’

Claim: Kenya President Uhuru Kenyatta declared that President Rodrigo Duterte is the “strongest man in the world as we talk” during the annual East Africa Summit.

Kenyatta reportedly said during that event: “It should be remembered that the Philippines was down economically before Duterte. Today the Asian country is being admired by those who claimed to be super powers. It is without doubt Duterte’s work can be seen.”

The claim was posted on the blog dutertesolid.altervista.org on February 21. The website eworld-news.com had published the claim a day earlier, but eventually took it down.

The same claim was published in at least 9 blogs, namely: theofwtimes.com, dutertenewsph.info, samperkinzblog.com, ourdailyrevelationsph.com, pin.ptvbalita.com, dailyviralhub.altervista.org, pinoypolitics.altervista.org, dutertesolid.altervista.org, and newsprimeph.blogspot.com, with timestamps as recent as in April.

Rating: FALSE

The facts: Kenyatta did not make that statement about Duterte. The “East Africa Summit” mentioned in the post was also unclear.

There are no other news articles showing that Kenyatta issued such statement. Neither president has also referenced each other yet in any public statement during their presidency.

As for the “East Africa Summit” where Kenyatta supposedly said it, the blog posts didn’t include additional details about it, like where it was held and when.

There is a gathering of East African Community (EAC) member countries, including Kenya, in February 2018, around the time the first blog posts about the claim surfaced, on February 20 or 21.

However, the summit – formally known as the 19th Ordinary Summit of Heads of State of the East African Community – happened on February 23. It was preceded by a two-day meeting, but it was billed as a joint heads of state retreat on infrastructure and health financing and development.

Kenyatta made a speech during the summit, but he did not mention Duterte.

In 2016, a similar claim surfaced on Facebook saying that East African presidents wanted to meet Duterte. It was debunked by memebuster.net on September 15, 2016, saying it was a satire piece. – Miguel Imperial/Rappler.com