FORMER senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. pleaded with his fans to give Rappler “a chance” after they slammed the online news outlet for allegedly rigging an online presidential poll.
“Let us give Rappler another chance,”
Marcos, the standard-bearer of the Partido Federal, told his supporters on Monday.
“Those behind the manipulation of a simple exercise to get the voters’ pulse on the 2022 presidential race might have been overwhelmed by their desire to accomplish whatever mission assigned to them,”
he said.
“So, let’s give them another chance to find honesty in their heart.”
he added.
Marcos congratulated his followers for verifying the survey facts of Rappler, the Philippines’ Facebook fact-checker, which conducted an online survey on presidential preferences in the 2022 elections.
He urged them to be on the lookout for claims that some poll trends in the presidential campaign were being manipulated to favor specific candidates, particularly those with low poll numbers.
Last Monday, a group of vloggers and Marcos loyalists chastised Rappler for its dubious online poll.
The presidential candidates were represented different emoticons in a Facebook poll.
Marcos received the “wow” emoticon, Vice President Maria Leonor “Leni” Robredo received the “heart” emoticon, Sen. Panfilo “Ping” Lacson received the “laugh” emoticon, Manila Mayor Francisco “Isko Moreno” Domagoso received the “like” emoticon, and Sen. Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao received the “care” emoticon.
Rappler’s manipulation was revealed, according to Marcos’ office, after a netizen published a video of himself checking out the emoticons hit for each of the candidates on TikTok, another social media platform.
In the video, Robredo had already received 161,000 votes, while Marcos had received 87,000 votes.
The movie demonstrated that when the pages were counted, the “wow” emoticons outweighed the “love” emoticons.
Rappler removed the survey, apologized to netizens, and noted that the survey had to be removed because it was not in line with the company’s aims.
Kasangga Jay and Princess Maui, vloggers, chastised Rappler for its “effort to fool the people” into believing Robredo was now receiving netizen support.