A video on YouTube is claiming that President Ferdinand Marcos is the first ever Philippine president to set foot in Basilan. This is not true.
Published on March 4, the video continues to gain traction, according to social media monitoring tool Trendolizer. It bore the untrue headline:
“PBBM kauna unahang presidente pumunta sa Basilan (President Marcos is the first president to go to Basilan)”
It repeated the same claim in a superimposed text shown throughout the short video’s 48-second run: “PBBM 1ST President pumunta sa Basilan. ‘Yan ba ang sinabi mong weak Leader? (President Marcos is the first president to set foot in Basilan. Is that what you call a weak leader?)”
The clip is spliced from a media interview with Marcos after he attended the March 2 Peace Offering Ceremony in the Municipality of Sumisip, Basilan.
Contrary to the video’s claim, Marcos never said he was the first FIlipino president to visit the island province but that he is the first president to visit “ground zero,” referring to the Sampinit Complex, which is one of the former strongholds of the Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf, where the ceremony took place.
Marcos’ predecessors have also visited the island during their term of office. Former president Rodrigo Duterte met with the troops stationed in Basilan back in 2016 following a skirmish with the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the area and visited families affected by the armed conflict.
Ex-president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo paid a visit to Basilan at least twice. In 2002, she attended the wake of a slain nurse who was held hostage by the ASG. Five years later, Arroyo returned to the island and talked to the soldiers who were fighting the same militant group.
The short video with the false headline emerged after Marcos witnessed the decommissioning of over 400 illegal weapons seized in Basilan on March 2.
YouTube channel Story Teller (created on Sept. 22, 2020) published the video, garnering over 126,000 views and 5,800 interactions.
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