Fragment of Philippine President discussing the misleading of overseas workers’ executions Edit
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos has shared his entire remarks in the post in a video of a Filipino worker in Saudi Arabia, making him seem to say the worker deserves the death penalty. A review of Marcos’ full remarks shows that he is actually talking about the government’s efforts to dissuade the Saudi authorities from implementing the enforcement.
The video appears to show Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos told the press that “the hanging judgment is actually worth it”, shared on Facebook on July 2, 2025.
The video’s Tagalog language title and overlay text show that Marcos commented on an overseas Filipino worker in Saudi Arabia after he was convicted of killing the Saudi National (Archived Link) on October 5.
Despite the appeal from Manila, Marcos said his administration did everything he could to stop the action.
Screenshot was captured on July 8, 2025 and added a red X to AFP
The clip has been shared radially since October and has resurfaced on Facebook, Tiktok and YouTube after Marcos was criticized by former ally Vice President Sara Duterte for doing too little and too late to help Filipinos get stuck in the Iran-Israeli conflict (archived link).
“Listen to this, OFWS (Overseas Filipino Worker). Marcos doesn’t care about you,” commented on one of the articles.
Another said: “Is this what our migrant workers should do? Should they be hanged?”
But Marcos’ remarks were misled.
The fake shared clip has the logo of local broadcaster UNTV News and rescue and was on October 9. Subsequent keyword searches on Google resulted in a full news broadcast from the broadcaster, which was posted on YouTube (archive link).
From the 5:46 mark of the news broadcast, Marcos’ remarks can be seen. The wrong shared clip omits Marcos said Saudi authorities have studied “whether the judgment of hanging is worthy.”
He was proven to say: “We have tried a lot of things and it’s been many years. The Saudi government is really trying to see and make sure that the judgment of hanging is actually what it deserves.
“Nevertheless, I guess we guess our friends in Saudi Arabia might have to look at it again, and they did.
A transcript of Marcos’ comments obtained by the President’s Office of Communications shows that he also talked about supporting families of executed workers (a link to archive).
The local fact-checking organization Vera files (archive links) also debunked the wrong claims.
AFP’s previous case made another false claim about the worker’s execution in October.
