Fans of Donny Pangilinan and Belle Mariano alerted a publication about an alleged cheating activity in a voting process for an awards show.
Key phrases related to their concerns “Nasa tamang fandom ako” and “Stop voting” reached the trending topics of Twitter Philippines on Friday, March 10.
The love team of Donny and Belle, known as “DonBelle,” was nominated in the category “Loveteam of the Year” for the coming Village Pipol Choice Awards (VPCA) of the Village Pipol Magazine, a local travel, lifestyle and entertainment publication.
Since the voting period started, their fandom “Bubbles” cast their votes for their favorite artists and snag the award for this category.
During the voting process, however, several fans noticed a suspicious influx of votes adding up to the tally of DonBelle as compared to other nominees.
Donny and Belle are up against the following love teams:
- KDLex (KD Estrada and Alexa Ilacad)
- FranSeth (Francine Diaz and Seth Fedelin)
- KathNiel (Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla)
- Team Jolly (Sofia Pablo and Allen Ansay)
- MavLine (Mavy Legazpi and Kyline Alcantara)
This prompted the Twitter fan account DonBelle Official to ask its followers and other fans to stop casting their votes on Thursday, March 9.
The account then issued a statement on behalf of the fandom that notified Village Pipol about the suspected cheating incident.
“We, DonBelle Official, along with other officials would like to condemn the sudden influx of votes and any act of suspicious votes for Belle Mariano and Donny Pangilinan VPCA categories,” it said in the statement.
The group further said: “We have been calling the attention of VPCA and VPM on this. The cheating incident has gotten totally out of hand, and we have sent numerous proofs of suspicious votes to the management, but they have not released any statement or taken any action yet.”
We have fought fair and square. Enough is enough. Actions must be taken.@villagepipol @vpchoiceawards pic.twitter.com/Ghbx69boBa
— DonBelle Official (@DonBelleOFC) March 9, 2023
Here, DonBelle Official further expressed its intention to “clear the air” on this issue of votes supposedly coming from “unlikely sources.”
“We call for action. We call for an investigation [of] all the votes that are dubious and from unlikely sources. Let us clear up the air as the voting season comes to an end. Let us all have the satisfaction that whoever wins these races, will receive the trophies without any tint of doubt and can do so with heads held up high,” the statement reads.
As of writing, Village Pipol and VPCA have yet to issue a response to this allegation.
The awards ceremony itself, meanwhile, will be held on March 29 at the Glass Garden Evangelista Avenue in Pasig City.