Jan 12, 20223 min read

ALTERED PHOTO: Abrenios Join Pink Caravan

Updated: Jan 20, 2022

Fact-checked by: Zhanele May Africano

Red Bullets:

Claim: Various Facebook posts claim that presidential candidate Leni Robredo’s team edited the photo of Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s caravan to make it look like a pink caravan.
Rating: Partly False (Fabricated/Altered)
The truth: The photo was from a BBM caravan, and the participants were wearing red. It was edited and published by persons not belonging to Robredo’s team.
Why fact-check: Concerned netizens, including the supporters of Vice President Leni Robredo, have called out the photo as fake. Both Robredo and Marcos Jr. are frontrunners in presidential surveys. Abra for Leni also posted on their Facebook page that they were not responsible for the alteration of the photo.

Red Totality:

Various Facebook accounts shared what was supposedly a photo of a caravan supporting presidential candidate Leni Robredo in Abra last November 2021. In the photo, the riders gathered at the Don Mariano Marcos Bridge on the boundaries of Tayum and Dolores towns wearing pink shirts, appearing like supporters of the Vice President participating in a so-called Pink Caravan.

This claim is partly false since the photo was altered.

In a Facebook story of one “Jan Quiday,” the photo was captioned, “Siak nangediten kakampink,” (I edited it for you, kakampink), admitting that he altered the original photo supposedly for the supporters of Robredo.

In a now-deleted post, a certain “Jhim Peralta '' reposted it with the caption, “Disclaimer: this photo is not mine ingrab ko lng ta nkitak adda nagipost. No masilyan kau, mangan kau asukar, Napipintas met ah t edit kon ngem detoy. Daming taga supporta ni LENI sa abra, puro pink ang balat. Bat kaya naging pink ang kulay? RED kanina to eh. Adda kami pay dtoy.” (Disclaimer: This photo is not mine. I only grabbed it from someone’s post. If you feel bitter, eat sugar. My editing skills are even better than whoever made this. Leni has so many supporters in Abra, they even have pink skin. Why did the color turn into pink? This was red a while ago. We were [in the caravan]).”

Abra for Leni, a group of volunteers from the province, supporting Robredo for the presidency, posted on their social media accounts a statement clarifying that the photo did not come from their team.

“We see many posts alluding that we edited a picture of the #BBM Caravan in Abra, and made it appear that it was a #PinkCaravan. This photo did not come from us,” the statement said.

The group also called on the other camp to stop the attacks: “While we understand that it was supposedly satire, many of the dictator’s son’s supporters believe that it was actually true, as it is in their nature to believe whatever they see [on] the internet. As a result, many were unnecessarily attacking us rabidly. We call on the dictator’s son’s supporters to stop the lies…”