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The seat of the Supreme Court of the Philippines in Manila.
Philstar.com / EC Toledo
MANILA, Philippines — The Supreme Court has not received a petition bearing the signatures of 16 million Filipinos calling for the resignation of President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr.
This is contrary to claims circulating on Facebook, where users have shared a photo of the fake Supreme Court statement, as well as posts styled as news articles asserting its existence.
Some now-deleted posts featured the statement, complete with the Supreme Court's Office of the Spokesperson header and title.
The posts claim that civic groups allegedly filed the petition on March 16 and was accepted by the high court on March 17. The fake statement claimed:
On March 16, 2025, at 10:15 a.m., the Supreme Court (SC) received a petition seeking to act on the 16 million signatures calling for the resignation of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. The petition, filed by concerned citizens and civic groups, argues that the overwhelming number of signatories reflects the people's will and their right to demand accountability from the government.
According to the post, the Supreme Court said that it had accepted the petition for a “study” and will be consolidated in other petitions to allegedly hold Marcos accountable.
It added that the high court ordered government agencies to submit a comment within 10 days of receiving the notice to explain why the petition should not prosper.
RATING: This is fake.
Facts
On Monday, March 17, Supreme Court Spokesperson Camille Ting said the document was fabricated.
“We categorically deny the authenticity of this document. No such statement has been issued by the Supreme Court Spokesperson,” she said.
READ: March 17, 2025 Statement of Supreme Court Spokesperson Atty. Camille Sue Mae L. Ting on social media posts circulating online sharing a fabricated document dated March 16, 2025 pic.twitter.com/v5c8QLk04D
— Philippine Supreme Court Public Information Office (@SCPh_PIO) March 17, 2025Ting also said that the high court did not receive any petition concerning the issue and that no En Banc session was scheduled on that day.
Official statement of the Supreme Court spokesperson saying the petition to have Marcos Jr. resign is fake.
Supreme Court Public Information Office
At the same time, according to the 1987 Constitution, a president can only be removed from office through impeachment.
A petition to remove an official from public office can only be done through a quo warranto petition, which may be filed by a solicitor general or a public prosecutor. It occurred once, with former Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno in 2018.
However, a president cannot be removed from office through a petition before the high court as the constitution only mandates impeachment for such action.
Why we fact-checked this
The Facebook posts started to appear days after several petitions were filed before the Supreme Court hoping for the return of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is currently detained in the Hague, Netherlands for crimes against humanity charges for his administration's extrajudicial killings.
The Facebook page Choose Libungan posted the fabricated statement on March 16, receiving nearly 500 reactions and about 700 shares as of March 17. The page is currently unavailable for public viewing.
Meanwhile, Facebook users Oyen Marie A. Sales and Josaphat Bastasa Pansoy posted about the fake petition on March 17, using a breaking news-style image with a caption formatted like an article.
The first post received over 500 reactions, 415 comments and one share, while the second gathered more than 50 reactions, 480 comments and about 250 shares.
Similar posts containing false claims and fabricated quote cards began circulating days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrested the former president.
Hours after his arrest, around 200 Facebook accounts framed the apprehension as kidnapping.
The ICC has scheduled the confirmation of charges hearing for September 23.
