Festivities at the 2023 Palarong Pambansa held at the Marikina Sports Center (Photo from the Palarong Pambansa Facebook page)
MANILA, Philippines — A drone show at the closing ceremony of Palarong Pambansa on Saturday displayed an upside-down Philippine flag — wrongly signaling that the country is at war — leaving officials of the host city Marikina red-faced.
In a statement issued later that day, the city government said it planned to file charges against DroneTech Philippines, the company responsible for the drone presentation at the end of the national youth sports tournament.
The company promptly issued a public apology and blamed “severe weather conditions” and “signal interference” for the oversight.
To close the yearly competition, the drone show depicted images of the Philippine islands, the national flag, and a shoe to showcase Marikina’s shoe industry.
Red on top
But an inverted flag was shown instead, with the red field on top and the blue one at the bottom.
Under the Flag and Heraldic Code of the Philippines, displaying the flag with the red field on top means that the country is at “a time of war.”
“The Marikina City Government, led by Mayor Marcy Teodoro, strongly condemns the incident and will sue Dronetech PH to determine the company’s legal responsibilities, including the accompanying penalties and fines,” according to the city’s statement.
In response, the company said the error had been “unintentional.”
“We would like to clarify that this error in the Drone Show programming, which was supposed to be tested days before, could have been noticed and corrected but was not successfully done due to the severe weather conditions, and signal interference on the said area for several nights,” DroneTech said.