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Days after the Philippines' raucous election campaign season kicked off in February 2022, a video showing a packed arena circulated in TikTok and Facebook posts claiming it showed a rally for presidential frontrunner Ferdinand Marcos Jr. In reality, the video shows a corporate event in 2019. The company told AFP it was unrelated to Marcos Jr's campaign. The video was shared on TikTok on February 9, 2022. The post claims the video shows a campaign rally for BBM -- the popular initials for the son and namesake of the country's late dictator -- on February 8 at the Philippine Arena north of the capital Manila. Marcos Jr is running with Sara Duterte -- daughter of outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte -- under a ticket dubbed Uniteam. Voter surveys show Marcos Jr heading towards a landslide victory as a massive social media campaign cranks up support. Screenshot of the false post. Taken February 18, 2022. A collage of Marcos Jr photos is shown alongside Tagalog-language text reading: 50,000 STRONG / PHILIPPINE ARENA / ONLY BBM IS STRONG / BBM IS MY PRESIDENT. The post's caption contains the hashtags #bbmforpresident2022 and #bbmsarah2022 [sic]. The video was shared with a similar claim on TikTok here , here and here . Comments on the posts indicate some social media users were misled. Very nice & successful Proclamation Night of the BBM-SARA UNITEAM AT THE PHILIPPINE ARENA, one user wrote. It looks like an advance victory party! another commented. However, the video has been shared in a false context. Keyword searches found the video was originally posted on YouTube on June 26, 2019. The YouTube post says the video shows an event held by AIM Global, a company that brands itself as a distributor of various products such as nutrition supplements. The 2019 video is captioned: AIM Global's 13th Anniversary Grand Celebration at the Philippine Arena. It contains the text overlay that reads 50,000 STRONG. We can confirm that the video shows AIM Global's 13th-anniversary celebration in 2019, a representative for the company told AFP. It is not related to BBM or any other presidential candidate's campaign rally. Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the YouTube video (right). Crowd estimate Crowd estimates released by Marcos Jr's camp indicate fewer than 50,000 people attended his rally. At least 25,000 seats were reserved for guests and VIPs in the 55,000 seating capacity venue, but crowd estimate went as high as 30 thousand, reads a Marcos Jr press release here on February 9. AFP has previously debunked misleading posts about Marcos Jr's campaign rallies here , here and here . March 17, 2022 This article was amended to add a 'Philippine elections 2022' tag in the metadata
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