911 Philippines’ Facebook page proudly announced yesterday, July 27, how ready they are to respond to various kinds of emergency.
As they said, “Handa na at handa palagi Bureau of Fire Protection para sa 911 Philippines, coming this August 2016.”
As it was reported earlier by Rappler, Communications Secretary Martin Andanar announced that Malacañang is set to launch 911 and 8888, the citizen complaints and emergency hotlines, this August 2016. The 911 hotline will replace the current 117 emergency hotline and will be connected to the Nationwide Emergency Response Center.
911 PH’s Facebook post was right to celebrate the preparedness of the BFP because they are surely going to be among the main responders to 911 emergencies.
But what irked several netizens was the fact that the post used a video showcasing lots of fire trucks gathered at the Quezon City Memorial Circle and displaying colorful waterworks, but did not explain much about the video. It caused many of the commenters to misunderstand that the fire trucks were bought under Duterte’s administration, based on how the netizens heaped praises on the President while criticizing the past administration.
One of the netizens, Chito Lapitan, who tried to get the facts straight about the video grew frustrated since his comments on the post were deleted. He then posted this on his own page, tagging 911 PH.
Based on his screen captions, the first time the video of the fire trucks was posted, there was no third paragraph explaining when the video was taken.
Lapitan even provided a link to CNN Philippines’ coverage of the firetruck turnover at the Quezon City Memorial Circle on February 19, 2016.
But when Memebuster went to check the misleading Facebook post, it already had a third paragraph explaining what the video is all about.
“This video is a turn-over Ceremony of the 3rd Batch of 469 New Bureau of Fire Protection Fire Trucks distributed to different regions on February 19 2016 at Quezon City Memorial Circle with DILG Secretary and DILG Undersecretary for Public Safety with BFP Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers”
Memebuster looked at the Edit History of the post and found that the post did not have that third paragraph at first.
It turned out that it was not only Lapitan who was trying to push for 911 PH to give the facts, based on the comments that we’ve seen.
A few hours after he posted how 911 PH seemed to have been misleading people with its Facebook post of the fire truck turnover, another netizen, firefighter Criselda Evangelista De Leon made this comment.
And here’s the video that she was referring to.
Then someone taunted her by saying “troll yellow alert,” de Leon pushed back saying she voted for Duterte during the elections.
When other commenters kept on branding her as “yellow,” de Leon also replied by saying that she just wanted to give the right information, with a side comment for keyboard warriors who refuse to believe the truth. She also said that she only made her comment about the fire truck turnover because some people were asking why they did not see such an event at the QC Memorial Circle yesterday, July 27, when 911 PH posted the video.
Another firefighter, Christina Lacap, tried to correct 911 PH’s post too, and just like de Leon, she was also bashed.
Probably after so many netizens commenting on how misleading the Facebook post is, 911 Philippines wrote this apology, which was later edited out. Fortunately, Facebook’s Edit History feature once again saves the day.
It should be noted, though, that several commenters said that they don’t really care whose project is what as long as it will benefit the Filipinos and it’s our tax money anyway.
However, giving the facts will help a lot in avoiding misunderstanding and in this case, credit-grabbing. We are all for the launch of a 911 emergency hotline, but 911 PH’s misstep is that they did not immediately caption the video they used properly, causing many of its followers and other netizens to misunderstand.
If there’s one thing that came out right in this situation is that it pays to be vigilant in setting things straight. As seen in the comments on the post, there are so many netizens out there willing to get bashed to get the truth out. This time, they succeeded since 9111 PH corrected its post by adding the right caption for the video it used, featuring the fire truck turnover last February 2016.
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