The Presidential Communications Office’s official Facebook page uploaded several photos showing the Duterte administration’s infrastructure plan, dubbed as “Build Build Build.” While it is a grand plan that seeks to help resolve the lack of jobs, inflation, traffic and transportation in the country, the netizens noticed one misleading infographic.
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Tagged as “Infrastructure Spending,” the infographic featured the average spending of the different administrations since Ferdinand Marcos’ time. It showed Duterte’s administration leading significantly in “spending” as it featured 5.4 percent of GDP for infrastructure. However, it has a small note: “Duterte Year 1 (2017 budget).
The most liked comment on the post pointed out how misleading it is to have compared the previous administration’s spending versus Duterte’s budget during his first year in 2017.
“Spending vs. budget? Tapos na po ba ang 6 years nya? This graph is potentially misleading. Sana ang pi-nost na lng is yung budget for infrastructure per se. Mas accurate pa. This might create confusion and provoke hate,” said Facebook user Gracie San Diego.
Other netizens questioned her accusation so San Diego explained how ‘inconsistent’ the points of comparison are.
“Infrastructure spending po ung graph. Yung under sa data nung kay Duterte, budget po. So hindi po yan consistent. Yung sa past presidents, total spending ho yan sa buong term nila. Dapat ang comparison, budget for the first 6 months ng lahat ng administrations or, total spending for the whole term. Magkaiba kasi ng points of comparison so iba ung magiging result. Saka wala pa pong actual GDP for 2017,” San Diego said.
When someone pointed out how the budget is “guaranteed” to become “spending,” San Diego and Aaron Benedict de Leon replied that no budget is guaranteed at all due to several factors.
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Seeing as how abusive some of the commenters accused them for “over analyzing” the photo, de Leon responded with this.
Other netizens also called out the misleading graph.
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Before the netizens noticed the misleading photo, it was proudly shared by Facebook pages Lapu-lapu and Mocha Uson blog, with the dare to fact-check it. Uson even captioned it: “Palakpakan natin ang ating Pangulo at kanyang cabinet.”
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