The Philippine Army (PA)’s 9th Infantry Division (9ID) has admitted to manipulating photos of alleged former communists who supposedly surrendered to the military in Masbate province “to protect the lives of the former rebels and their families.”
Major Ricky Anthony Aguilar, public affairs chief of the 9ID, issued an apology on Friday night after an edited photo of at least a dozen of the 306 alleged returnees went viral in social media for all the wrong reasons.
“Our line unit’s intention is not to mislead the public, but to protect the lives of the former rebels (FRs) who placed themselves at risk by surrendering to the government. We admit to have committed a mistake though by manipulating the picture for the sole purpose of ensuring the safety of the lives of the FRs and their families,” Aguilar said.
“We apologize for the honest mistake. We are hoping for your kind misunderstanding,” he added.
The issue stemmed when the 9ID sent a news release to media Friday the supposed surrender of 306 ex-rebels to the military on Thursday amid the 51st founding anniversary of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).
A set of photos accompanying the news release was picked up by several media organizations and posted in social media.
Aguilar said the photos came from the 2nd Infantry Battalion (2IB), which was one of its service battalions, while the ex-rebels were said to be members and supporters of NPA, Milisyang Bayan (MB), and Sangay ng Partido sa Lokalidad (SPL) among others.
However, netizens were quick to notice the seemingly odd presentation of the photos, where one of them had a photo of a person whose left foot was cropped out of the frame.
Another one had a photo of a rifle with a tag that shows the date “June 18, 2019,” where netizens pointed out that it did not match the military’s statement if the rebels yielded in December.
Suspicions were then raised that the photos were deliberately edited which was later admitted by Aguilar.
PHOTOSHOPPED
The military is known to blur the faces of rebels or suspects they arrest in its news releases, citing a need to protect their identities.
However, the 9ID seemed to miss the point why the edited photos were being called out since what the public were criticizing was not the blurring of the rebels’ faces, but the intention to edit them into the frame and make it appear that there are people in the photo.
One Twitter account who goes by the username “Joanna D.” claimed that one of the photos was recycled.
She posted a photo of the rebels – which was featured in a local news website – who surrendered to the authorities in Milagros, Masbate in 2017 and there appears to have striking similarities with the rebels from the 9ID on December 26, 2019.
While Aguilar confessed that the photos were digitally manipulated, he insisted that the mass surrender of the rebels really occurred on December 26.
“There were indeed 306 surrenderers in Masbate where negotiations begun sometime in October 2019,” he said.
The 9ID has yet to confirm whether or not one of the photos with the rebels was indeed recycled from a mass surrender event in 2017. (Martin Sadongdong)
