The tanim-bala scam at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) has victimized several tourists and overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). In late 2015, then-Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte reacted to the issue by promising to be the lawyer of the tanim-bala victims. Duterte also threatened the people behind the scam, telling them he’ll make them eat bullets.
More recently in May, after the elections, Duterte told all airport personnel he will fire them all.
“Kayong nasa NAIA, pag may tanim pa dyan, lahat kayo alis,” Duterte said.
“I do not care even if you’re chief of office or you’re CO there knows or has nothing to do with it, istasyon, ganun din. Kung ang chief of police hindi niya kontrolado ang pulis niya, at may pulis dyan naglalaro, out silang lahat,” Duterte added.
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He also threatened to those found guilty of the scam that he would assign them to Zambaonga, where kidnapping incidents are rampant.
These statements from Duterte about the tanim-bala scam seem to have ignited blogs from making eye-catching headlines. Memebuster has already busted an article related to Duterte firing NAIA employees, even if he was not yet inaugurated into the presidential seat when that article came out.
And this time, another blog headline has caught the attention of Duterte’s supporters, especially after it was shared on a pro-Duterte Facebook page.
Many of those who commented on the post said that they are relieved to finally have this issue resolved after 36 NAIA employees were fired and how they can finally come home without worrying about being victimized by the scammers.
However, there were also those who commented whether this news is credible and how this wasn’t reported by major news programs. One even noticed how advanced this news seems to be, although he acknowledged that this could be “coming soon.”
Upon checking the article itself, it was merely a video from GMA NewsTV’s noontime news program, Balitanghali. However, the video cuts a few seconds into the clip, with a pop up asking readers to download it and make an age verification via Facebook share because it has content that is not suitable for young audiences.
The site does not seem like a reliable source of news.
If you also try to Google for news of the said firing of NAIA employees under Duterte’s administration, you can’t find anything of the sort.
So, what we can do is just to wait and see when Duterte will deliver on his promise to address the tanim-bala problem at NAIA if ever another incident pops up. It’s not a good idea to keep people’s hopes up by sharing false, unverified news from shady blog sites.
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