CLAIM: Juan Ponce Enrile died on Nov. 11 at 101.
RATING: FALSE
Several Facebook posts falsely claimed that former Senate president and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile had passed away, following an announcement in the Senate of his failing health on Nov. 11.
Flagged content: False reports of Enrile’s death spread across Facebook soon after Sen. Jinggoy Estrada disclosed the former senator’s health condition.
- The posts featured photos of Enrile in a black and white filter to make the readers believe he is dead.
- Some of the posts carried a caption that read, “REST IN PEACE SEN. JUAN PON[C]E ENRILE.”
Our debunk: Contrary to the false reports spreading on Facebook that Enrile had died on Nov. 11, the ex-senator was reported to be under intensive care due to pneumonia.
- During the Nov. 11 Senate session, Estrada said that Enrile had “slim chances of surviving,” not that he was dead.
- Enrile’s daughter, Katrina Ponce Enrile, also confirmed that her father “isn’t doing too good.”
Rewind: Enrile’s last public appearance was on Oct. 24, when he was acquitted of his plunder and graft cases.
- He attended the Sandiganbayan court proceedings remotely, appearing frail and bedridden, and with a tube inserted in his nostril.
- Enrile is one of the oldest living figures in Philippine politics, notably serving as martial law administrator during the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
- His age has long been a source of both humor and disinformation online, with memes making fun of his longevity and death hoaxes circulating well before reports of his declining health.
Why we fact-checked this: PressOne.PH has been monitoring the spread of disinformation on social media platforms, investigating how false claims about public figures can distort public perception of real-world politics.
- The posts capitalize on the shock value of reporting a death of a public figure, grabbing the audience’s attention and exploiting emotional responses to amplify their reach.
- Some of the pages involved in the disinformation surge used the now-deleted graphic posted by the Daily Tribune’s Facebook page that prematurely reported Enrile’s passing.
- As of writing, PressOnePH has monitored multiple posts on the platform, with one drawing more than 9,000 reactions, 700 comments, and 4,000 shares in a span of only a few hours.
Spot the fake: Death hoaxes and other false breaking reports on developing stories confuse the public by giving them fake closure on still on-going events. PressOne.PH calls this phenomenon news-cycle disinformation.
- It is a form of disinformation that mimics the editorial conventions of breaking news reports, taking advantage of the public’s heightened demand for updates.
- News-cycle disinformation spreads fast and overwhelms fact-checking efforts.
- In some cases, news-cycle disinformation can plant false understanding of current events which may serve interests that could play out in future elections. Vincent Andal with reports from Leigh San Diego, Nikko Balbedina
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