Claim: Dismissed Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo has died.
Why we fact-checked this: The YouTube video containing the claim has 160,310 views and 2,300 thousand likes as of writing. It was posted on August 31 by a YouTube channel with over 626,000 subscribers.
The title of the YouTube video says: “Katawan ni Alice Guo, nakita na! Bongbong Marcos emosyonal ng malaman!” (Alice Guo’s body has been found! Bongbong Marcos becomes emotional over the news!)
A set of pictures, along with footage of Senator Sherwin Gatchalian’s interview with the media, was inserted in the video while the narrator discusses how Guo’s body was allegedly found.
The facts: No major news outlet has reported on the supposed death of the former Bamban mayor. The video merely includes a compilation of images taken out of context to make the claim look factual.
A reverse image search on the thumbnail image showing several soldiers carrying a coffin was originally taken in February 2023. It showed soldiers transporting the remains of a Filipino soldier killed in Albay to his hometown in Enrile, Cagayan.
The image of two ships with a U-shaped black line between them was a screen capture from a Super Radyo DZBB report last July 29 on the oil spill in Bataan.
The picture being associated with the supposed retrieval of Guo’s body was taken from a GMA News report in February 2019, when authorities found a dead body floating in waters off Negros Oriental.
Meanwhile, Gatchalian’s video statement in the latter parts of the video is unrelated to the claim, as he talked about the inconsistencies in the testimony of Shiela Guo, Alice’s alleged sister, about how she and Alice left the country in July. A quick reverse image search also showed that the original clip was from the 3:48 mark of a YouTube video uploaded by ANC on August 30.
Facing controversy: The video was uploaded amid ongoing inquiries into how Guo, who faces questions on her real identity and links to Philippine offshore gaming operators, managed to leave the Philippines in July. During a Senate inquiry on August 27, Shiela Guo claimed that Alice and her supposed siblings allegedly fled the Philippines by boat. (READ: How did Alice go to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia?)
Guo faces a slew of cases and was dismissed from service in August. – Barbra Gavilan/Rappler.com
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Barbra Gavilan is a Rappler intern. She is a fourth year Journalism student at the University of Santo Tomas.
