FACT CHECK: No Sereno admission of ‘order’ from Robredo in blog post video

Claim: Ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno supposedly admitted that Vice President Leni Robredo instructed her to call for the resignation of President Rodrigo Duterte.

A blog post by kantonewsph.xyz on May 20 ran the headline, “Nabuking! Bulgaran na Ito, Sereno Inaming si Leni Robredo Nag-utos sa Kanya na Manawagan Paresign si Duterte” (Exposed! This is Blatant, Sereno Admitted Leni Robredo Told Her to Call for Duterte to Resign).

The post contained only a YouTube video uploaded by Tatay Duterte News. In the video, vocal Duterte supporter Dante Maravillas shared his thoughts on Sereno calling for Duterte to step down.

The blog post was shared by 16 Facebook groups and pages. The same claim was also posted in at least 3 other blogs: newsinph.tk, newsglobal.top, and dutertelegacy.news.

Rating: FALSE

The facts: The embedded video did not mention such an admission from Sereno, contrary to what is stated in the blog post headline. 

The video was taken from Maravillas’ Facebook Live discussion on May 18, where he talked about Sereno’s “Duterte resign” call, the opposition’s bid to impeach the 8 Supreme Court justices who granted the quo warranto petition that led to Sereno’s ouster, and the plan of some senators to review the SC decision on Sereno.

Among others, Maravillas thinks the opposition’s “script” of urging an embattled personality like Sereno to go against Duterte is already a “broken record.”

He then played a portion of an audio recording of Sereno’s speech on May 17 where she called for Duterte to resign.

However, Maravillas did not explicitly mention in the embedded video that Sereno “admitted” to an order from Robredo. The portion of Sereno’s speech that was played in the video also did not contain the same admission.

This blog post joins other false articles that embed just an opinion video, then make a misleading claim in the headline, even if it isn’t mentioned in the video. – Michael Bueza/Rappler.com