At a glance

• Claim: The Commission on Elections (Comelec) “finally” released a list of candidates for the 2022 elections. 
• Rating: MISSING CONTEXT 
• The facts: As of December 27, the list of candidates that the Comelec released is not yet final. 
• Why we fact-checked this: This was flagged by Facebook’s fact-checking tool as potentially misleading. It has been viewed 39,519 times on YouTube, and the channel that uploaded it has 163,000 subscribers. 

Complete details

A video on YouTube, published on Saturday, December 25, said that the Commission on Elections (Comelec) “finally” released a list of candidates for the 2022 elections. 

The title of the video said, “BREAKING NEWS : SA WAKAS COMELEC NAGLABAS NA NG LISTAHAN/PRES DUTERTE P10 BILYON PONDO IPAMIMIGAY NA.” (Breaking news: Finally, the Comelec has released a list/President Duterte is already giving away P10 billion in funds.)

This claim is missing context. 

As of December 27, the list of candidates that the Comelec released is not yet final. 

On their website, the Comelec labels their list of candidates for the 2022 national elections as “tentative.” The website was last updated on December 24. 

On Sunday, Comelec spokesperson James Jimenez also called out on Twitter a graphic labeling a list of the 15 tentative presidential candidates as “certified.” 

He said: “This infographic is MISLEADING. The list pictured is a tentative list of candidates, not the ‘certified’ or final list of candidates for President in the 2022 National and Local Elections. There are persons on this list that have pending motions for reconsideration. #fightfake.”

Moreover, contrary to the misleading title of the video, the contents of the video itself said that the list was tentative. 

The final list of candidates is what will be reflected in the ballots for the 2022 polls.

The poll body was supposed to release the final list of candidates on December 15, but delayed it for “at least two more weeks” due to “a number of unresolved nuisance cases.”

The YouTube video containing the misleading claim was flagged by Facebook’s fact-checking tool as potentially misleading. It has been viewed 39,519 times on YouTube and the channel that uploaded it, “KABISNES NEWS,” has 163,000 subscribers. – Vernise Tantuco/Rappler.com

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