CLAIM: Personalities Romeo “Dagul” Pastrana, Efren “Bata” Reyes, Kim Atienza and Jessica Soho have died.
RATING: FALSE
A Tiktok page posing as GMA News has repeatedly made false reports claiming that various celebrities and media personalities have passed away.
Under the handle @gmanewsbalita, the Tiktok account has amassed thousands in engagements by posting fake death notices about personalities including former comedian Romeo “Dagul” Pastrana, billiards icon Efren “Bata” Reyes, news presenter Kim Atienza, and veteran journalist Jessica Soho.
GMA News presenter Kim Atienza, in an Instagram post, dismissed the claim by posting a screenshot of the fake report with the word “HOAX” written across it. He captioned his post “Nope, not today.”
The family of billiards icon Efren “Bata” Reyes has also denied reports of his supposed passing.
In a Facebook post, Reyes’ daughter in law Mary Hope Muñoz said that the billiards legend was in the United States for a tournament and was set to come home this week.
The account has 17,000 followers and has amassed 183,400 likes as of this writing.
It also uses “GMA🔹” as its account name, incorporating a blue diamond emoji to fool unsuspecting users into thinking that it is an official account. Nikko Balbedina
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