Marcos Fact Checks

FALSE: Taliban supports Bongbong Marcos’ presidential bid for 2022

Rappler.com

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FALSE: Taliban supports Bongbong Marcos’ presidential bid for 2022
The Taliban never made a statement supporting Marcos or any presidential candidate for the 2022 national elections in the Philippines
At a glance
  • Claim: The Taliban expressed their support for the 2022 presidential candidacy of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.
  • Rating: FALSE
  • The facts: The Taliban never made a statement supporting Marcos or any presidential candidate for the 2022 national elections in the Philippines. The clip was from the recorded first press conference of the Taliban in Afghanistan, where their spokesman said they would respect women’s rights and press freedom.
  • Why we fact-checked this: As of writing, the TikTok video making the claim has more than 1.3 million views, 106,900 likes, and 2,532 comments.
Complete details

A TikTok video claims that the Taliban expressed their support for the presidential candidacy of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. It further says that the group wanted to pay back the late former president Ferdinand Marcos, the aspirant’s father and namesake, for supporting them back in the 1980s.

An account with the username “@halalan2022” posted the video on October 29. It is their most viewed upload with 1.3 million views, as of writing. The said account has at least 25,900 followers and has gained more than 433,400 likes. 

The text on the video reads: “BREAKING NEWS Grupong Taliban ng bansang Afghanistan, nagpahayag ng suporta sa pagtakbo ni BBM. Ayon sa grupo, nais nilang ibalik ang suportang ginawa sa kanila ni dating Pangulong Marcos noong 1980’s.”

(The Taliban from Afghanistan expressed their support for the candidacy of BBM. According to the group, they wanted to return the support that former President Marcos gave them in the 1980s.)

Meanwhile, the video shows the Taliban in what looked like a press conference. A subtitle plays at the bottom of the video to make it appear those are the words being spoken by the group’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid. 

It says: “The Philippines was one of the countries who offered help during the transition in Afghanistan. As our way of giving back and support to them in their electoral process come May 2022, Afghanistan is willing to send our Taliban forces should the Philippine government will ask for our help to make sure that they will have a peaceful elections. We hope the Filipino people will elect Mr. Bongbong Marcos. His father was a supporter of Taliban cause back in the 1980’s during our fight for our own independence.” 

A piece of background music is the only sound in the entire video because the uploader muted the clip of the supposed interview. The logo of Al Jazeera can be seen in the bottom left corner of the video.

Even though the tag “#fakenewsforidiots” was included in the caption, several people in the comments section still found the video believable. Some were amazed and thanked the Taliban, while some praised the relationship between Afghanistan and the Philippines.

The claim in the text of the video has no basis.

The alleged statement of the Taliban spokesman is false. He has never made such a statement in an interview.

The video in the TikTok post turned out to be a manipulated clip from a video report uploaded on YouTube by Al Jazeera English on August 18. It showed the first press conference of the Taliban spokesman in Kabul since they took over Afghanistan in August, toppling the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

The original video does not mention anything relating to the Philippine elections and Bongbong Marcos. It was a report on the Taliban saying they would respect women’s rights and press freedom.

There are no articles that mention Bongbong Marcos and the Taliban in the same story nor statements of either party about each other. There are also no articles that prove that the Taliban have declared support for the incoming 2022 elections in the Philippines.

The Taliban was officially established during the Afghan war in 1994. Former president Ferdinand Marcos started his term in 1965, 29 years before the formation of the Taliban. His dictatorship ended in 1986.

Rappler previously fact-checked the same Tiktok account on December 1 for claiming that Russian President Vladimir Putin also expressed support for the same presidential candidate. – Cybelle Dawn Fajilan/Rappler.com

Cybelle Dawn Fajilan is a Rappler Mover. This fact check was reviewed by a member of Rappler’s research team and a senior editor.

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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