One of President Rodrigo Duterte’s supporters, based on his Facebook profile photo and posts, has proudly claimed donated transport ships from Australia as blessings for the new administration. He shared an article with a headline, “Two transport ships donated by Australia depart for PH.”
Those who won’t even bother clicking on the link won’t know that this Philippine Daily Inquirer article was first written and published on July 23, 2015. It was about two landing craft heavy (LCH) ships donated by the Australian government to the Philippine Navy. According to Navy chief Vice Admiral Jesus Millan, the vessels will improve the country’s transport of equipment and personnel, as well as disaster and relief efforts and humanitarian assistance.
According to a Philippine Star article, the vessels reached the Philippines on August 4, 2015. They were christened BRP (Barkong Republika ng Pilipinas) Batak (formerly HMAS Brunei) and BRP Ivatan (formerly HMAS Tarakan).
Aside from these two LCH vessels arriving in the Philippines in 2015, three more of the same vessels were delivered to the country on March 26, 2016, as reported by the Philippine Star. These three vessels, though, were purchased by the Philippines from Australia for P270 million, which is considered a friendship price. And just like the first two vessels, the Navy is set to use the new arrivals for the troops’ humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations.
There have been many cases of old articles shared on social media to make them seem like they were just published and make it easier for netizens to pull off some credit-grabbing stunts. So whenever we stumble upon an article online, we should check everything from the headline and publication date to the last sentence in the entire content and understand it before reacting online.
Fortunately, in this case, many of those who commented on the post read the article itself because they pointed out how this was old news and how this has become a case of credit grabbing. Hello, fellow Busters!
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