Claim: Newlywed Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Henry Charles Albert David and Rachel Meghan Markle “praised” Pres. Rodrigo Duterte according to a “recent interview.”
The blog newsph.club in their undated post ran the headline “Prince Harry And Meghan Markle Praised President Duterte!”
The post was shared a total of 15 times with 4 different Facebook pages and groups (which appeared to be either pro-Duterte, pro-Bongbong Marcos, or pro-Peter Cayetano) which have a total of 1,646,280 followers. Within these groups and pages this claim has generated 4,303 in total interactions as of May 31, 2018.
Rating: FALSE
The Facts: The couple did not “praise” Duterte.
Rappler checked credible news sites for any reports related to the claim and found no news reports or public statements from the duke and duchess’ side saying that the couple “praised” Duterte.
The blog post was also very vaguely written. It said the couple praised the president in a “recent interview” because of his “country’s affairs.” It did not mention details of the exact statement made or when the interview happened.
It said the couple praised Duterte for having a “different prestige” because of the “changes he made in the Philippines.” A series of photos of Duterte wiping his tears and the couple during their wedding comes after.
The article then jumps to a word-for-word copy of a thedailybeast.com May 26 feature article entitled “What Meghan and Harry Can Teach William and Kate” written by Tom Sykes. This article does not mention Duterte at all.
This is not the first time that a hoax article claimed that a member of the British royal family praised the Philippine president. Memebuster.net has “busted” on February 22 a claim that Queen Elizabeth Alexandra Mary II called Duterte a “brave man.”
The blog only has 9 posts as of May 31, 2018, all written by “admin.” It does not mention the editorial staff, nor a masthead. It also does not provide details on how to contact the editorial staff.
The domain newsph.club is privately registered via WhoisGuard, Inc. making it not possible to trace the owner via a domain registry. It was registered very recently, on April 22, 2018. - Miguel Imperial/Rappler.com
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