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Cardiologist-turned-online health advocate Willie Ong is in Singapore for treatment after revealing he was diagnosed with abdominal cancer
Claim: Cardiologist and online health personality Dr. Willie Ong, also known as Doc Willie, has died.
Rating: FALSE
Why we fact-checked this: The YouTube video containing the claim has 120,083 views as of writing. It was posted on September 21 by a YouTube channel with over 145,000 subscribers.
The title of the video says: “Doc Liza Ong napaiyak ng salubungin ang labi ni Doc Willie Ong matapos maiuwi sa Pilipinas!” (Doc Liza Ong wept when she saw Doc Willie Ong’s body after it was transported back to the Philippines!)
According to the narrator, Ong has supposedly died following complications due to disease, but his family has yet to announce his funeral details. His body was allegedly transported back to the Philippines on September 21.
Pictures of Ong and his family were used throughout the video, while an image of a body inside an orange inflatable body bag was used in the thumbnail.
The facts: Ong is not dead, nor was he transported back to the Philippines on September 21. On Tuesday, September 24, Ong posted on his official Facebook page to express his gratitude to the Lord for giving him another day to live.
Ong is currently receiving treatment in Singapore after being diagnosed with abdominal cancer. According to a GMA News report, Ong is preparing for a repeat positron emission tomography scan on October 9 to check for developments in his condition.
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Out-of-context media: A quick reverse image search showed that the thumbnail image of a body inside a body bag was a screen capture from Turkish broadcast agency TRT World’s video report posted on Facebook on April 26, 2020.
The original video shows Turkey sending an ambulance plane to Sweden to transport its citizen who tested positive for COVID-19 but had not received proper treatment.
Rare cancer: The YouTube video was posted following Ong’s revelation last September 14 that he was undergoing treatment for rare abdominal cancer.
Ong said he has been experiencing “shortness of breath, fatigue, and difficulty in swallowing” since April 2023 and started to experience back pain in October 2023.
The physician is well known for providing medical advice to Filipinos through his online videos. Previously, he was a senatorial candidate in the 2019 elections and ran for vice president in the 2022 polls as the running mate of former Manila mayor Isko Moreno.
Previous fact-checks: Rappler has published several fact-checks related to Willie Ong:
– Barbra Althea Gavilan/Rappler.com
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Barbra Althea Gavilan is a Rappler intern. She is a fourth year Journalism student at the University of Santo Tomas.
