At a glance

• Claim: Vice President Leni Robredo said that most of the people who experience teenage pregnancies are young.
• Rating: FALSE
• The facts: Robredo did not say this quote. There are no official reports or transcripts of her saying this.
• Why we fact-checked this: This claim was flagged by Facebook’s fact-checking tool on Sunday, November 28, as potentially misleading. The tool says it is circulating in the Philippines and the US. Since the quote was first posted on November 7, 2019, it has accumulated 12,000 reactions, 261 comments, and 31,000 shares.

Complete details

Vice President Leni Robredo supposedly said, “Karamihan sa mga nakakaranas ng ‘teenage pregnancy’ ay mga kabataan.” (Most of the people who experience “teenage pregnancy” are the youth.)

This claim was flagged by Facebook’s fact-checking tool on Sunday, November 28, as potentially misleading. The tool says it is circulating in the Philippines and the US. Since the quote was first posted on November 7, 2019, it has accumulated 12,000 reactions, 261 comments, and 31,000 shares.

This claim is false. Robredo did not say this quote.

A Google search of the exact quote does not return up any official news reports of Robredo saying this.

Searching for the quote on the Office of the Vice President’s website, which includes transcripts of Robredo’s speeches and her radio show, “Biserbisyong Leni,” does not return results either.

Around the time the post first circulated on November 7, 2019, the Commission on Population had said that “moral decadence” is one of the reasons teen pregnancy is on the rise in the Philippines.

This fake quote has circulated in the past but with a different image. It was fact-checked by Vera Files in June 2020. Robredo also asked her Facebook followers to help her report the fake quote in June 2020. – Vernise Tantuco/Rappler.com

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