FALSE: Trillanes quote on Facebook haters

Claim:

Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV threatened to haul all his Facebook “haters” to jail.

This claim was spotted through Facebook Claim Check, a tool that detects dubious content on the platform. Posts containing this claim were also spotted by the Rappler fact check team on Facebook.

Rating: FALSE

The facts:

Trillanes did not say this. There is no proof that he said this quote.

Facebook users shared a graphic attributing the following quote to Trillanes: “Sa lahat ng haters ko sa Facebook, ipapakulong ko kayo.” (To all my haters on Facebook, I will haul you to jail.)

This graphic was shared as early as November 2017, but is being circulated again as of August and September 2020.

Rappler did not find any statements, video recordings, or reports that prove Trillanes said this.

Trillanes also denied saying this. “I did not issue such a statement. As a rule, I don’t engage with trolls, so they can hate me all they want… However, when they cross the line and actually commit cyber libel, like in the case of Mocha Uson and Thinking Pinoy, I would not hesitate to file a case against them,” Trillanes told Rappler in response to this claim.

In 2017, Trillanes filed administrative and criminal complaints against Uson, who was then Palace Communications Assistant Secretary, partly for spreading false information that the former senator owned offshore bank accounts.

Back then, Trillanes had said, “The era of fake news is over. Lahat nung mga magkakalat ng fake news ngayon ay mananagot sa ating batas,” (Everyone who spreads fake news will be held liable under our law.)

In the same year, Trillanes also filed a cyber libel complaint against Rey Joseph “RJ” Nieto, the blogger behind “Thinking Pinoy,” for alleging that United States President Donald Trump called him a drug lord.

Earlier, Rappler fact-checked another fake quote attributed to Trillanes, wherein he supposedly said Duterte created COVID-19 with China. – Loreben Tuquero/Rappler.com

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