FACT CHECK: NPA rebels surrendered to president-elect Marcos Jr.’s administration #FactsFirstPH

Rating: FALSE

A video circulating on Facebook and TikTok claims that a group of communist rebels surrendered to incoming president Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr.

The video, posted on Facebook on June 6, includes a caption saying: “Sana lahat na bumalik loob sa gobyerno at lisanin na ang kabundokan,” (https://perma.cc/Z4YA-YVF3) while clips on TikTok are captioned: “Simula na ng Uniteam. Tumogon sila lahat sa panawagan na Unity. ” (https://archive.is/Elv4q#selection-1497.0-1497.87).

The video clip shows a group of ‘rebels’ surrendering their weapons and mounting a military jeep, surrounded by uniformed soldiers.

This is false.

The Facts: The video is actually a scene from Pepe Marcos’ 1986 action film Gabi Na, Kumander, which won Best Picture at the Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) Awards in 1987.

The film, based on a popular radio drama, follows two brothers, one a communist rebel and the other a military soldier, who find themselves on opposing sides in an armed conflict. The full digitally-enhanced movie was uploaded on YouTube by VIVA Films on January 12, 2022.

Furthermore, there has been no recent news reports of New People’s Army (NPA) or communist rebels surrendering to state forces as of late.

Why we fact-checked this: As of June 27, the clip has garnered more than 12K interactions on TikTok. This is one among many fake news that promote disinformation in favor of the administration’s anti-communist campaign. If this is the trend of the Marcos news machine, then we are in for a long war of disinformation indeed.

This has been fact-checked by Yahoo! PH previously.