Batac police station in Ilocos apologizes for misleading post on Anti-Terror Act

MANILA, Philippines — The police station of Batac City in Ilocos Norte has apologized for posting a photo on its social media site that supposedly contained misleading information about what is not allowed under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

According to the Batac City Police Station, the Facebook post was erroneously uploaded.

“We apologize for the misleading information regarding the Anti-Terror Bill the other day as it was erroneously posted,” Batac City Police Station said on a post dated Sunday.

“Rest assured that this won’t happen again because our main objective is to protect everyone against misleading information,” it added.

The police office posted photos detailing who are terrorists and what are classified terroristic activities under to the controversial Republic Act No. 11479 or the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2020.

For example, the post said a person would be considered a terrorist if they would be “donating or helping relief drives that aren’t state/government recognized” or are “posting, writing, sharing, and/or retweeting posts (even memes) related to ‘terrorist activities.’”

To counter their previous post, Batac City Police Station posted a photo from Altermidya, an alternative and progressive media site.

However, some netizens pointed out that the photos used by the police station actually came from Altermidya, in one of the information packages produced by the news site during discussions on the Anti-Terrorism Bill.

https://www.facebook.com/BatacCityPoliceStation/posts/1951838234970960

Just this Sunday, it was the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ turn to issue an apology after a Facebook page named “ Armed Forces of the Philippines Information Exchange” published a wrong list of former University of the Philippines students who became New People’s Army members.

According to the AFP, its Civil-Military Operations Office or J7 is already conducting an investigation on why such a list was published online.

READ: AFP’s Civil-Military Office apologizes for list of UP alumni who ‘joined’ NPA 

JPV