FALSE: Drilon laughs at Pangilinan’s 2022 LP plans

At a glance:

• Claim: Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon laughed at Senator Francis Pangilinan’s 2022 aspirations for the Liberal Party (LP).
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: Drilon did not laugh in response to Pangilinan’s plans for the LP. Pangilinan and Drilon’s interviews were held more than one year apart and Drilon was speaking in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Why we fact checked this: This video was emailed to Rappler for verification. It has 18,088 views since it was uploaded by the YouTube channel “VIRAL PINAS” on December 15.

Complete details:

A YouTube video by the channel “VIRAL PINAS” claimed that Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon laughed at Senator Francis Pangilinan’s 2022 aspirations for the Liberal Party (LP). Pangilinan is currently the president of the LP, while Drilon is the vice chair.

The video was emailed to Rappler for fact checking. It has 18,088 views since it was uploaded on December 15. The channel “VIRAL PINAS” has 114,000 subscribers.

This claim is false. Drilon did not laugh at Pangilinan’s plans for the LP. The interviews that were used as references in the video were held more than a year apart.

For quotes by Pangilinan about the LP, the video cites a Rappler article published on June 3, 2019 titled, “After tough loss in midterm polls, Otso Diretso has eyes set on 2022.” This was published after the May 13, 2019 midterm elections, wherein none of the 8 opposition bets won a Senate seat.

The video then shows an Inquirer.net headline that reads “LP staying ‘below the radar’ for 2022 polls – Drilon.” This article was published on July 15.

In the video that accompanies Inquirer.net’s article, neither the interviewer nor Drilon mentioned Pangilinan. It is also clear in this video that Drilon was speaking about staying “below the radar” due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which was declared on March 11.

“It’s difficult when you have over 50,000 [people] who are positive of COVID. It’s difficult to talk about politics. So we are below the radar because I think what we should do at this point is to join hands with all sectors of society in order to help our people and help our country recover from this pandemic,” Drilon said about preparing for 2022.

The “VIRAL PINAS” video showed parts of the Inquirer.net video, but not in full. It did not show the publish dates of the Rappler and Inquirer.net articles. – Vernise Tantuco/Rappler.com

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