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MANILA, Philippines — A false claim that the Armed Forces of the Philippines broke with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. after the May 13 shooting at the Senate has spread across Chinese-language platforms in near-identical wording, appearing on news portals, video sites and content aggregator accounts that otherwise had little to no record of covering Philippine affairs.
From May 15 to May 26, the claim that the military had "distanced" itself from Marcos or "cut ties" with his administration appeared in at least 127 articles and videos on 11 Chinese-language platforms, ’s analysis shows. The posts appeared in Baidu’s Baijiahao and Haokan, Sohu, NetEase's 163.com, ifeng/Phoenix, Weibo, WeChat, Toutiao, Douyin, TikTok, Xigua and Bilibili.
The earliest items in the scan appeared two days after the Senate shooting. Similar posts continued to surface until May 26, suggesting a rolling spread rather than a single viral post.
Many of the articles and videos used near-identical wording. On Baidu alone, 65 indexed videos carried variations of a single Chinese-language headline: “Gunshots ring out! Marcos Jr.’s fate is sealed; the Philippine military urgently cuts ties; China-Philippines relations may see a turning point.”
The wording shifted slightly across platforms — “urgently cuts ties,” “quickly cuts ties,” “pulls away” or “takes a step back” — but the main claim stayed the same: The military was supposedly abandoning Marcos after the Senate incident.
The AFP did not...
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