Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - Pepsi Caused a Riot That Killed 5 People

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

In 1992, Pepsi Philippines launched a popular promotional campaign called Number Fever, in which bottle caps carried random three‑digit numbers—announced nightly on TV—with winnings ranging from ₱100 to a grand prize of ₱1 million. But on May 25, the winning number 349 was mistakenly printed on between 600,000 and 800,000 caps instead of just two, triggering a frenzy when the announcement aired and thousands presented winning caps at Pepsi plants expecting life‑changing payouts . Pepsi offered a goodwill payment of ₱500 (~US $18) to cap holders, which nearly 486,000 accepted, but many refused—sparking protests.

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and all she wants is a better life for her family. And one day in 1992, that better life is suddenly within reach. because Pepsi, the soda company, has started this contest, where one person in the Philippines will have the opportunity to win a million pesos, which is a life-changing amount of money in the Philippines during this time. Now, the contest is called number fever, and you buy a Pepsi, and you hope that the winning number is under the bottle cap. And so they run these commercials all over the country to get the word out so that everyone there will start buying Pepsi. And it works. They do start buying it.

In fact, the company's sales skyrocket by almost 40%. So they're making tons of money off this. Now, merrily, like I said, she's going through hard times. She's unemployed. Her family's money is running real low. Regardless, they decide that this contest is worth it. And her husband spends the last of their money on some Pepsi's, hoping that they win the million pesos.

And so finally, the big day comes. They're going to announce the winning number on the news and 70% of the country is watching. And so they announce it. 3, 4 and 9. And Merrily's husband looks through the bottle caps to see if they have the winning number, 3, 4, 9. And kaboom, they do. Marley and her family have just won a million pesos. And so they're like screaming and dancing around the living room because they're about to be rich. I mean they can finally create a better life for themselves and for their kids. Until.

Here's the dildo. Pepsi really screwed up because 349 was not supposed to be the winning number. In a contest like this, they only print like one or two winning bottle caps at the bottle cap factory or wherever. That way you don't end up with thousands of winners. But Pepsi accidentally chose the wrong number, 349. You want to know how many bottle caps were printed with the number 349 on them? Hundreds of thousands. So there are hundreds of thousands of winning bottle caps in circulation.

And this is when shit gets crazy. Because about 486,000 people in the Philippines now all think that they've won a million pesos. And if Pepsi had to pay all those people out, that would be about 486 billion pesos. or about $19 billion US dollars, which in 1992, I don't think Pepsi had $19 billion to give out. But people don't know that. They all think they won. So I guess some people that won live near a Pepsi bottling factory in KZon City, and they want their money right away.

And so a bunch of them show up to the bottling factory like they're about to get paid. And like one woman has like 35 winning bottle caps, so she thinks, She's about to win 35 times over. So as this mob starts gathering outside the gates of this factory, a secretary inside the place is looking out the window like, what the fuck? Why are there so many prize winners? And so Pepsi has to call the government to be like,

ah, we screwed up. And now the execs at the company have no idea how they're going to get out of this. And I guess some execs are like, hey, let's just change the winning number. No one will notice. And so they let some local newspapers know the new winning number. And the next morning, the papers are all saying that the real winner is the number 134. And this just makes things infinitely worse. It makes things more confusing, and it pisses off all the other 349 winners because they feel like they got screwed over,

and they did. And so even more, 349 winners start showing up to the Pepsi factory demanding to be paid. And so Pepsi has to start taking security measures by, like, like locking up the gates and then they get policemen and military as security guards because these people are now on the edge of getting violent. And so by mid-morning, this crowd keeps getting more and more rowdy. And some of them are starting to throw rocks at the factory building. And no one is leaving. Even as nightfalls, people are still there outside waiting, upset that they didn't get their prize money. Meanwhile, Pepsi executives are still panicking. They know a lot of people have this winning 349 number and they know that they can't pay everyone out, but they have to do

something because people are about to riot. So at 3 a.m. that morning Pepsi comes up with another plan to fix this mess. They estimate that at the very most, there are only a few thousand winning bottle caps. And so they announced that yes, they screwed up, but that they'll give everyone with the winning number 500 pesos as a gesture of goodwill. And a lot of people are like, all right. And so thousands of people start taking them up on this 500 pesos offer. And over the next two days, Pepsi pays out over 12.5 million pesos. But then they screw up again.

They decide to stop honoring some of the 349 winning bottle caps, saying that some of them just aren't valid. And this pisses people off even more. And by this point, people are in the streets like broken. And here you can see their signs that say boycott Pepsi and here you can see the number three four nine on the banner and if all that isn't crazy enough This is when another company steps in Coca-Cola apparently as all of this is going down and executive at the local office of Coca-Cola is like well, this is gonna be great for coke and so he pays one of the lead protesters 10,000 pesos as startup money to help fund the anti-pepsy protest And this is when the protests really get out of control. And the protesters start rioting in the streets, demanding their money.

People are making maltop cocktails and homemade bombs. And they're like throwing the maltop cocktails at the windows of the Pepsi factory. Then they start targeting the delivery trucks. And they like vandalize them. The crowd flips some of them over and they set some of them on fire. And then someone throws an actual live grenade through a window at the Pepsi factory and it goes all. and it goes off unaliving three employees who were inside. Like, this is insane.

And while all of this is going on, there are also people filing lawsuits against Pepsi. In fact, 22,000 people in the Philippines take legal action against them. So thousands of lawsuits are filed. And some of them banned together and some of them start forming groups. I mean, people are fighting really hard to get paid from this. And so merrily and her husband, they join one of these groups. And they also start joining rallies and like protests.

And so all of these protests and all these legal battles, they go on for about two years. And eventually all the anger dies out and the protests, they fade away as Pepsi isn't really going to budge much. And at the end of it all, Marily finally gives up. And she just doesn't have the energy for this. And her husband had recently passed away from a heart attack. And so she's left to support her family all. by herself, and so she moves on, and sadly, she never sees a single peso from Pepsi. And in 2006, the Philippine Supreme Court ultimately rules that Pepsi is actually not at fault

for this and is not liable for damages. And so ultimately, thousands of lawsuits and criminal complaints against them are dismissed. And it's crazy because at the end of it all, five people died total from the riots and Pepsi had to pay a fine of like 150,000 pesos and some relatively small payments to a few plaintiffs, but not much. I mean, they really didn't get into much trouble for this.