On September 20, Facebook page “OFW GLOBAL MOVEMENT Supports President Rody Duterte” uploaded three photos to show what they claimed to be protesters stranded at the Batangas port after they were recruited by the Liberal Party from Visayas and Mindanao for the September 21 rally.
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The page captioned the photos with this:
“Ang Pagsi sisi ay lagi nasa Huli”
Na stranded sa Batanggas ang mga ni recruit ng LP galing sa Mindanao at Visayas para sa gagawing rally bukas sa Luneta laban sa Duterte Administration.. Nagturuan ang LP at BAYAN kng kaninong responsibility ang magpapakain sa kanila at saan sila matutulog habang nasa Manila sila.. Ang usapan daw ay pagkatapos na sa Rally ibigay ang bayad, hindi pa alam kng Magkano bawat Isa.. Gutom at Pagod ang dinanas nila at ang iba ay may mga sakit.. Naiisipan nlng ng ibang rallyista na umuwi nalang sa kanilang mga lugar sa Visayas at Mindanao..”
One of the photos, the first one, was quite familiar because it was already used by fake news site Pinoyobserver.com to claim that the recruited protesters from Vis-Min found themselves stranded at a Batangas port when they arrived on September 19 instead of September 20. We busted the story, given the use of the wrong photo and Pinoy Observer’s history with making up stories.
The first photo above with the sleeping guy in his blue shirt was a photo taken by Reuters of stranded passengers sleeping on chairs at Manila’s north harbor as ships were not allowed to sail due to Typhoon Hagupit in December 2014.
Image: Screen capture of Reuters photo used in Enca report
We also checked out the sources of the second and third photos posted by the Duterte Facebook fan page.
We checked both photos’ potential sources on Google and discovered that both photos actually make up one bigger photo taken of the passengers waiting for their bus ride home at the Araneta Bus Station in Cubao, Quezon City on December 23, 2015.
Unfortunately, the old photos used above were enough to convince many netizens that the people in the photos were actually the protesters allegedly “recruited” for the September 21 rally against dictatorship in Luneta. The Duterte fan page misused the photos of real passengers who were stranded by the typhoon in 2014 or were hoping and waiting to return home in time for Christmas in 2015.
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