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The Facebook post was made in 2024 and is being reshared among supporters of former president Rodrigo Duterte to criticize the Marcos administration
Claim: Retired Supreme Court senior associate justice Antonio Carpio wrote an essay critical of Congress and the administration of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
Rating: FALSE
Why we fact-checked this: The post has been widely reshared on social media. One such post, made on March 13, has already received 14,700 shares, 7,900 reactions, and 939 comments as of writing.
The essay, supposedly written by Carpio, is titled “The Blind Leading the Lost: A Nation Betrayed.” It criticizes the current administration, mentioning among other things Congress’ decisions to cut the budget for the education sector, “zero” funding for the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth), and the Ayuda sa Kapos ang Kita Program (AKAP), which the essay describes as a “political bribe dressed up as charity.”
The posts circulated on social media following the arrest of former president Rodrigo Duterte over crimes against humanity and his transfer to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Pro-Duterte pages such as “Alyansa ni Inday Movement – AIM” and “Duterte Worldwide Online Vote tracker” have reshared the post.
The facts: Carpio never wrote the post. The original author, Kix Gacias, made the Facebook post on December 15, 2024, amid controversies related to the 2025 national budget and alleged blank items inserted in the approved bicameral conference committee report. (READ: 2025 budget ‘blanks’: Billions involved in DA adjustments after ratification)
At the time the post was made, the Department of Education had a P10-billion budget cut for its computerization program, while PhilHealth had zero subsidies from the government for 2025. The bicameral conference committee also pushed to restore funding for House Speaker Martin Romualdez’s cash aid program AKAP after the Senate removed funding for the project.
Among the social media posts falsely citing Carpio as the author of the viral essay was one from columnist Rigoberto Tiglao. He has since corrected his Facebook post, but the essay is still attributed to Carpio in Tiglao’s article.
Duterte vs. Marcos: The misattributed essay posted in 2024 has resurfaced and is being circulated by Duterte supporters amid the ongoing rift between the Duterte and Marcos camps and, most recently, Duterte’s arrest.
Duterte supporters are blaming Marcos for the former president’s arrest, calling him a traitor who previously said that he would not recognize an ICC arrest warrant and that he “[could not] see” the jurisdiction of the ICC.
A pro-Duterte campaign on social media also amplified claims that the arrest was unlawful, questioning the legality of the warrant. However, the government and legal experts said the arrest followed local and international standards. Malacañang also explained through an ICC-accredited lawyer that the arrest was valid.
Even before Duterte’s arrest, the same posts falsely attributed to Carpio had already been circulating among pro-Duterte accounts. A Facebook page named Hugpong ng Pagbabago, a volunteer-run page named after Vice President Sara Duterte’s political party, posted a similar article on January 10 and has already gathered an estimated 48,300 shares, 9,300 reactions, and 1,000 comments as of writing. – Angelee Kaye Abelinde/Rappler.com
Angelee Kaye Abelinde, a campus journalist from Naga City, is a second-year Journalism student of Bicol University and the current copy editor of The Bicol Universitarian. She is a graduate of the Aries Rufo Journalism Fellow of Rappler for 2024.
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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