French news agency exposes latest fake news on ‘PH’s new police cars’

Screenshot from AFP Fact Check

The Agence France Presse (AFP) debunked on Wednesday a Facebook post claiming that China has delivered 200 new police cars to the country.

The viral Facebook post shared by a page named “General Bato for Senator Movement” on November 11, showed “two rows of police cars” which the page claims to have been requested by President Rodrigo Duterte to be delivered from China.

https://www.facebook.com/462560150905255/posts/488449388316331/

The Facebook account, according to the news agency, is in support of former police and Bureau of Corrections (BuCor) chief Ronald “Bato” Dela Rosa.

Screenshot from Crowdtangle data

However, AFP clarified that the image in the post is actually a photo of police vehicles in Japan.

It said that “a reverse image search traced the photo back to a video on the official YouTube channel of Japanese automaker Nissan.”

“The video shows a ceremony in the southwestern Japanese city of Fukuoka, where officials unveiled Nissan Leaf cars for use in a public safety programme,” AFP added.

The French news agency noted that the video’s Japanese description when translated said: “The Fukuoka Prefecture Traffic Safety Association decided to use a total of 22 Nissan Leaf cars, which is a new model, as a vehicle (known as ‘blue patrol’) to promote and raise awareness of crime prevention in the districts of Fukuoka prefecture.”

“The blue patrol departure ceremony, hosted by the association, was held on April 3 as the spring traffic safety campaign kicked off,” it added.

Moreover, the AFP said it asked Philippine National Police Spokesperson Benigno Durana if there are indeed 200 new police vehicles that arrived in the country from China.

“Not true,” Durana told an AFP reporter.

The post have garnered more than 1,000 shares three days since it was posted, the AFP noted. /jpv