A post circulating on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook (FB) claims that Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio is the only vice president in Philippine history to have been elected with more votes than the president. This is not true.
There were six candidates who won the vice presidency with a higher vote count and percentage than their respective presidents.
Posted as early as April 19, the erroneous post carried a caption that read:
“This is the reason why they are AFRAID & TREATENED (sic) of VP Inday Sara Duterte. She is the ONLY VP who got more votes than the President.”
Aside from Duterte-Carpio, five other vice presidents won their respective elections with bigger votes than presidents, data from the Philippine Presidency Project and the Philippine Electoral Almanac show. They were Sergio Osmeña Sr. in 1935 and 1941, Diosdado Macapagal in 1957, Joseph Ejercito Estrada in 1992, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 1998, and Noli De Castro in 2004.
The erroneous post emerged amid the worsening rift between the Marcos and Duterte families, which was triggered by drug abuse accusations, charter change proposals, and a shift in the country’s foreign policy especially in relation to Chinese aggression in the West Philippine Sea.
Duterte-Carpio and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ran as a tandem in the 2022 elections under the UniTeam Alliance.
Published by X user @UnitedPiO, the post has received 8,952 views, 239 likes, 135 replies and 46 reposts. FB page Asia Today (created July 20, 2023) also reposted the claim and shared it across FB groups.
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(Editor’s Note: VERA Files has partnered with Facebook to fight the spread of disinformation. Find out more about this partnership and our methodology.)
