A viral post on TikTok showing a modern and highly prosperous Cagayan de Oro City, popularly known as CDO), is fake.
The 24-second video posted by TikTok user @mateoph2.0 started with an intro “It’s just a city in Mindanao, Philippines,” and then followed by impressive images of the downtown, a river cruise, riverside boulevard and rush hour traffic, all of which are non-existent in Cagayan de Oro.
A Google reverse image search of some clips in the video revealed the infrastructures or landmarks can be found in Chongqing, China.
YouTube videos posted by Cloud Traveling and MonsterCam showed the landmarks posted by @mateoph2.0 were not in Cagayan de Oro but in the wealthy Chinese city.
These include the Twin River Bridges and the Hongya Cave in downtown Chongqing.
Chongqing, known as “Mountain City,” is located in Southwestern China, in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. It has jurisdiction over 38 districts and counties, covering an area of 82,400 square kilometers with 31.02 million permanent residents and an urbanization rate of 65.5 percent.
The comments on the fake and misleading video include, among others, “CDO in another world; “Taga Cagayan ko pero wamay inana sa Cagayan oi” (I am from Cagayan but there’re nothing like that in Cagayan); and, “Maau onta og matinood” (I hope it will become a reality).
The video was posted on May 23 with comments still coming to date.
As of posting at 1:26 p.m. on 03 July, the fake video generated at least 109.3k likes, 2,427 comments, 8,005 bookmarks and 981 shares. The post did not indicate it was a meme, a fake video or just a joke.
Froilan Gallardo, MindaNews reporter based in Cagayan de Oro City, slammed the video as fake.
Cagayan de Oro, dubbed the “City of Golden Friendship, is in Northern Mindanao and the capital of Misamis Oriental. It is classified as a highly urbanized city with a population of around 750,000 (2020 census).
As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes leads or suggestions from the public to potential fact-check stories. (Bong S. Sarmiento / MindaNews)
