00:00 [dramatic music]
00:03 Bride and groom in the field.
00:05 Intrigued by their marriage,
00:11 they gossiped.
00:13 Set up?
00:14 What's the truth behind their unification?
00:18 [dramatic music]
00:19 It's her wedding day and she doesn't want to be there.
00:22 [dramatic music]
00:23 This video was posted online on Facebook.
00:27 The bride is obviously upset while getting married.
00:33 She was forced to be separated from her unloved husband.
00:39 The poor teenager can't even smile.
00:42 Because of the alleged marriage,
00:44 the bride's father was punished.
00:47 Because the bride fell in love with a man
00:50 who is against their culture.
00:54 So her father sold his daughter to a dealer
00:58 and married a 23-year-old man,
01:02 almost twice her age.
01:05 [dramatic music]
01:07 The ritual and ceremony of their unification
01:10 was witnessed by the whole country.
01:13 The girl had to say goodbye to her freedom forever.
01:16 [dramatic music]
01:17 At the end of the video,
01:19 it was said that these events
01:21 will be a disaster for the faraway countries
01:24 that are concerned about the privacy of women.
01:28 [dramatic music]
01:29 The reason for this was received by the Batikos
01:32 from those who watched the video.
01:34 This poor young girl being sold into a life of slavery
01:38 and never-ending misery.
01:40 That's messed up.
01:41 That's not a good punishment.
01:43 Parents should be ashamed.
01:45 The older man is ashamed and disgusted for agreeing
01:48 to marry her as a punishment
01:49 for falling in love with someone
01:51 other than who's allowed in her cultural traditions.
01:54 [dramatic music]
01:55 This marriage was held here in the Philippines
01:59 and the bride is a Filipino.
02:02 [dramatic music]
02:05 Until we received a message in our inbox
02:09 asking for help.
02:11 The bride in the video is a sister.
02:14 To find out what really happened in the marriage,
02:18 our team went to Barangay Sonko
02:21 in the town of Lantapan in Bukidnon
02:24 where the bride and groom live in the viral video.
02:28 They are members of the Talaandig tribe.
02:31 [dramatic music]
02:35 But before our team could enter their community,
02:40 [indistinct chatter]
02:42 they performed a ritual
02:44 in accordance with their beliefs.
02:47 [drum music]
02:59 Later on,
03:00 our team met the bride and groom
03:03 in a controversial video.
03:05 [dramatic music]
03:07 They were called Rumalia and Reiji.
03:09 [dramatic music]
03:10 The ceremony was performed when they got married
03:13 in accordance with the traditional wedding ritual
03:16 that is called Kaamulan Asawahay.
03:19 The life of a married woman is different when you're still a woman.
03:22 Because now, you have a lot of things to remember,
03:25 like work, children,
03:26 and when everyone is at home.
03:29 There are times when I'm really tired.
03:31 I hope I don't rush.
03:33 When the video was leaked,
03:35 they became the subject of discussions in the whole town.
03:39 I was embarrassed to go out because our neighbors
03:43 were always asking questions.
03:46 "Is this true or not?"
03:47 I was so sad because people were judgmental.
03:51 They commented.
03:53 I'd run away rather than be held prisoner against my will.
03:56 It's basically abuse and practical rape.
03:58 She should have run away with a foreigner.
04:00 I'm sorry, but that shouldn't be allowed.
04:02 When I saw this video,
04:04 I was always sleepy because
04:06 anything could come out of their mouth.
04:08 But they didn't know that it was very painful for us
04:10 because we were the ones who saw it.
04:12 It became a myth that the husband and wife were fighting.
04:16 Especially Mr. Reggie,
04:18 who was in doubt if his wife, Romalia, was forced to marry him.
04:24 He was also angry with me
04:33 because he was convinced in that video that our marriage was not true.
04:39 I was just wearing plastic.
04:42 I was so angry.
04:46 I just believed it.
04:49 It was just a look.
04:50 It was just a look.
04:51 I thought that we would just separate.
04:54 But many said in the video that it was a lie.
04:59 We were interviewed to clear our names.
05:05 First of all, this video was taken in 2019.
05:09 When did they get married?
05:11 They have been married for 5 years now.
05:14 Their son has been single for 4 years.
05:17 We love our son so much.
05:19 When he fights, when the child smiles,
05:22 he also gets angry.
05:24 Reggie was already married at first
05:27 before he married Romalia.
05:29 It was a good thing that he accepted their tribe.
05:32 Their age gap is really big.
05:35 But,
05:36 It's not true that we are 23 years old.
05:40 We have been separated for 10 years.
05:42 Above all, Romalia was not really forced by her father.
05:48 That's why Reggie married her.
05:50 Let's ask Romalia's father himself.
05:55 It's not true.
05:57 She was happy when she was young.
05:58 She was happy when her mother was on vacation.
06:00 She was happy when she was single.
06:03 She was happy when she was alone.
06:06 There is nothing wrong with our tribe.
06:10 The fight against foreigners is not true.
06:12 It is not allowed to marry outside.
06:17 It's been a long time.
06:18 That's why this is a mixed community.
06:21 There are people from different places.
06:24 In fact, before Romalia and Reggie got married,
06:28 they were lovers for a year.
06:31 The man who was courting our daughter is not a real arranged marriage.
06:35 But why was Romalia angry on the day of their wedding?
06:42 That day, my mother was covered with high blood.
06:47 I was really worried.
06:49 It is also prohibited to smile because it is part of the ritual of their wedding.
06:56 You should be able to focus.
06:58 I was worried because of her face.
07:00 I thought that she has a long face and she is quiet and shy.
07:05 They also suspected that Suhol took the money.
07:11 They said that it was an offering that is part of their culture.
07:15 I didn't pay anything.
07:17 I am not her father.
07:18 I am not her father because she is my daughter-in-law.
07:23 I was the one who got married, but I didn't get married and my mother was buried.
07:29 I was really angry when I watched the video that they made on us.
07:34 It's not funny and you can't do anything.
07:37 I thought of KMJS because I know that they have the capacity to help.
07:42 I hope that she will be consensual and delete those videos.
07:46 I hope that she will also detect who she is because what she did is shameful.
07:51 The big question now is,
07:53 who spread this fake news?
07:58 The wedding was around April.
08:01 I think there were no foreigners at that time.
08:04 Most likely, there were many foreigners visiting here.
08:07 But they went in October because our community is open for IP Man celebration.
08:12 It is included in Republic Act 10175 or Cyber Crime Prevention Act of 2012.
08:20 The punishment of ordinary libel is prison correctional, 6 months to 6 years.
08:26 Elevate the prison major 6 years and 1 week to 12 years if you did that through the social media.
08:33 1.2 million maximum fine under the new law.
08:37 Aside from the fine, you can pay for doing that in the experience of depression.
08:44 Next, we should investigate who is the one who took the video.
08:49 Romalia and Reggie were given the name of the videographer.
08:54 When we got married, a man took a video but we did not know him.
08:59 This is the volunteer who took their wedding.
09:02 Our team contacted him.
09:07 Did he know why the wedding video was posted online?
09:14 Don't ruin the life of other people to earn money.
09:20 It is not funny.
09:21 His reaction?
09:23 The videographer said that...
09:25 On our way back.
09:29 Hot topic of Marites Online.
09:33 The marriage in Lantapan, Bukidnon.
09:36 It was punished by the bride because she loved a foreigner.
09:40 That's why she was forced to marry a man she did not love.
09:45 But the bride and groom in the video, Romalia and Reggie, were fooled by all the intrigues and tricks.
09:54 They were victims of fake news.
09:57 The fight with the foreigner was not real.
09:59 I am not the father.
10:00 Our husband is the one who did that.
10:02 We did not pay anything.
10:04 In our team's investigation, the only one who knows the bride's brother, Lizel, is the videographer of the wedding.
10:12 When we got married, a man took a video but we did not know him.
10:17 It was a coincidence that he was in this place.
10:20 That's why he presented the wedding gift for free.
10:24 We got the number of the videographer.
10:29 But he refused to be interviewed.
10:32 According to Lizel, in their first conversation with the videographer,
10:39 he explained that he had nothing to do with the leaked video.
10:43 He said that his laptop was stolen in 2020.
10:47 Where the materials he got were saved.
10:50 I think it's possible that the one who stole the laptop is the one who took the video.
10:56 But one of the things that the bride's family is responsible for is that they have many more people who believed in the content of the viral video.
11:04 Especially, there are other pages that have uploaded it.
11:08 The aggrieved party may file a complaint before the office of the Cybercrime Division.
11:12 And from there, we can ask Facebook to take down that particular Facebook page,
11:16 subject of course to the platform's community guidelines.
11:20 We also tried to contact the pages that uploaded the video.
11:25 But we still haven't gotten any response.
11:28 Fake news has many effects on people or on half of the society.
11:33 But one of the concrete effects that we can see is when a person's narrative or identity is misrepresented.
11:42 This kind of activities are monetized or profitable.
11:47 There are also features, platforms where we are given the opportunity to report this kind of information.
11:55 The couple's conversation, because it does not correspond to their page that posted the video,
12:01 is asking for help from the viewers who are together to report the video to Facebook to take it down or remove it.
12:13 I just want to delete it or remove it because it may be affected by others.
12:23 The person who made the video, if he wants money, he should look for a decent job.
12:28 He should not destroy the lives of others.
12:31 It's up to the many pages that share or post online.
12:39 And they post things that are not true.
12:43 It's her wedding day and she doesn't want to be there.
12:46 In every comment and post, remember that there are real people who can help you.
12:56 People who can be destroyed just because of fake stories.
13:02 Thank you for watching, Kapuso!
13:05 If you liked this video, subscribe to the GMA Public Affairs YouTube channel.
13:11 And don't forget to hit the bell button for our latest updates.
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