10 netizens face rap over bomb joke in Pagadian

AGLOW An eight-story tall Christmas tree is lighted to the delight of the crowd during the opening of Paskuhan 2023 in Pagadian City on Friday. They were unaware of the online bomb joke being spread while the event was being streamed live on Facebook. —LEAH AGONOY

PAGADIAN CITY — The local government here is pursuing charges against 10 people who posted a bomb joke on social media during the city’s Christmas event opening last week as they failed to appear before city officials and issue an apology.

Mayor Samuel Co said the city legal team was preparing cases against the netizens, earlier tracked down by the local government’s technical team to have shared the posts as Pagadian was celebrating its Paskuhan 2023. They were summoned to the mayor’s office but did not appear within the Dec. 13 deadline given by the city government.

Co said they considered the bomb scare serious because of the anxiety it could bring to the public, considering the recent explosion at the Mindanao State University gym in Marawi City that killed four and wounded 50 others.

Thirteen others, including two newly elected Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) officials, went to Co’s office on Wednesday to apologize, saying they were not aware there was something wrong with what they did.

Presidential Decree No. 1727, signed in 1980, declares as unlawful the “malicious dissemination of false information or the willful making of any threat concerning bombs, explosives or any similar device or means of destruction.”

The SK officials said they were not aware of the law against bomb jokes. —LEAH AGONOY

READ: ‘Not funny’: Man arrested for bomb joke in MRT-3