Are ‘Silent Majority’ members paid Roxas supporters?

A photo of Mar Roxas supporters flashing 500 peso bills is making the rounds of social media.

Posted on the Usapang Korapsyon facebook page, the picture went viral and is being used by the camps of other candidates against the Silent Majority group of Roxas supporters.

Based on the comments,many believe that Roxas supporters are paid to campaign for his candidacy. Some even connected the money to the Yolanda funds which many said are missing and being used by the government to help Roxas’s campaign.

While the comments section was dominated by the anti-Roxas netizens, one Roxas supporter stood her ground and revealed the real story behind the picture.

Louise Fabella said the 500 bills were included in the picture because it contains the pictures of Ninoy and Cory Aquino and because it’s colored yellow which is the campaign color of the Liberal Party.

“500 kasi andun si Ninoy at Cory. Hindi lahat ng tao nabibili. At minsan, dahil sa bias tayo, sarado ang mga isip natin sa katotohanan. Kagaya ng picture na ito, ibang interpretation niyo. Samantalang si Duterte, direchahan sinasbi sa mga salita, na papatay sya.. na dapat sya nauna mangrape, walang detalyadong plano para sa ekonomiya. Mangongopya nlng daw sya. Hay, open your eyes guys”.

[500 because Ninoy and Cory (Aquino) are there. Not all people can be bought. And oftentimes because of our biases, we close our minds to the truth. Just like this picture, which you interpreted differently. Look at Duterte, he blatantly says that he’ll kill, that he should be the first to rape, no detailed plans for the economy. That he’ll just copy from others. Sigh. open your eyes guys.]

That comment was eventually supported by the person who first posted photo.

Steno Padilla on his Facebook post said he’s sorry for causing a “ruckus and misunderstanding” regarding his viral photo.

He explained it was taken to mock their friends and officemates who accused them of being “bayaran and elitista” just because they support the candidacy of Liberal party candidates Mar Roxas and Leni Robredo. He added that they just used the 500 bills to add more of the color yellow to the picture which represents the color of the RoRo tandem.

Subsequently, he also posted a meme using the same picture with the caption “I’m sorry if your brain didn’t get my sarcasm.”