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FACT CHECK

​VERA FILES FACT CHECK: Enrile DID NOT ‘slap’ Sotto for proposing De Lima ‘release’

A story purporting to show former senator Juan Ponce Enrile shooting down Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto’s alleged plan to “release” detained Sen. Leila De Lima was published July 8 by website dutrending.info. The story is fake.

Bearing the headline “ENRILE SINAMPAL SI TITO SOTTO SA PLANONG PAGPALABAS KAY DE LIMA (Enrile slaps Tito Sotto for planning to release De Lima),” the report carried a pirated 27-minute clip of the July 7 episode of Enrile’s televised radio show on DZAR 1026, #DitoSaBayanNiJuan.

Neither Sotto nor De Lima was mentioned in the clip, nor in the full reel of the hour-and-a-half-long radio interview. The topic was actually the inspection of imported goods.

Dutrending.info’s fake report, which could have reached more than 2.2 million people, was published almost a week after Sotto wrote the Philippine National Police asking that De Lima be allowed to conduct Senate hearings from her custodial center in Camp Crame. De Lima has been detained since February last year on illegal drug charges.

Traffic to the story was largely generated from social media by Facebook pages DU30 Trending News, Duterte Worldwide Supporters and Alan Peter Cayetano Supporters International. Dutrending.info was created July 5; Youtube channel Tatay Duterte News, which uploaded the Enrile clip, in December 2016.

(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)