Indonesia

FALSE: Robredo says the virus, not people, should be restrained

Rappler.com

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

FALSE: Robredo says the virus, not people, should be restrained
Vice President Leni Robredo did not make this remark and the graphic was altered from a quote card produced by News5

Claim: Vice President Leni Robredo said it should not be people, but the virus, that should be restrained from spreading.

At least two Facebook users posted a graphic attributing the following quote to Robredo: “Hindi naman dapat ang mga tao ang pigilan natin sa pag kalat (sic). Dapat ang virus ang pigilan natin.” (We should not restrain people from spreading out. We should restrain the virus.)

The graphic contained News5’s logo as well as its social media handles. It was also dated March 12.

These posts were flagged by Claim Check, Facebook’s tool for detecting posts with potentially false information.

Rating: FALSE

The facts: Robredo did not make this remark, and the graphic was altered from a quote card produced by News5.

The original post by News5 was captioned, “Iginiit ni Vice Pres. Leni Robredo na hindi makatutulong ang panic buying at hoarding sa gitna ng #COVID19 sa bansa.”

(Vice President Leni Robredo stressed that panic buying and hoarding in the middle of the COVID-19 crisis in the country would not help.)

News5’s graphic contained the following quote from Robredo: “Ang bawat bote ng alkohol na iniimbak natin at di nagagamit ay isang boteng ipinagkakait natin sa ating mga kapitbahay. Sa huli, kung magkasakit sila, lahat tayo madadamay, gaano man karami ang maiimbak nating mga gamit o pagkain.”

(Each bottle of alcohol that we hoard and don’t get to use is one bottle that we denied our neighbor. In the end, if they get sick, we will all be affected, no matter how many supplies or food we hoard.)

  

This quote was taken from her statement on March 12. In this speech, she did not say people should not be restrained. She called for work-from-home arrangements in favor of physical distancing. (READ: Pahayag ni VP Leni Robredo sa nagbabagong sitwasyon ukol sa COVID-19)

Rappler also reached out to the one who posted the graphic first, but did not receive a response as of writing. The post became unavailable after Rappler sent them a message.

This is not the first time that this News5 graphic was altered to perpetuate a false quote attributed to Robredo. Rappler also debunked another false quote that claimed Robredo suggested “inhaling back” one’s cough to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. – Loreben Tuquero/Rappler.com

Keep us aware of suspicious Facebook pages, groups, accounts, websites, articles, or photos in your network by contacting us at factcheck@rappler.com. Let us battle disinformation one Fact Check at a time.

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