The Philippines had its own #covfefe moment on Friday when the official Twitter account of the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO) mistakenly posted the word “fafda.”
The PCOO’s fafda tweet was taken down after a few minutes, unlike the infamous tweet of US President Donald Trump that was on his timeline for hours.
This, however, did not prevent netizens from retweeting and taking screenshots of the PCOO tweet and giving their own take on fafda. In fact, #fafda became a Twitter trending topic as well.
Trump’s tweet, “Despite the constant negative press covfefe,” had drawn widespread reaction and spawned various memes and different takes on what covfefe could mean.
PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar said fafda was an accidental tweet from one of the account’s administrators and was not supposed to mean anything.
“It doesn’t mean anything so she deleted it right away,” Andanar said. “I immediately wrote a memo to all of our social media admins to be more careful,” he added.
Several Twitter users poked fun at fafda, while others had a more timely twist on what the word could mean.
Twitter user @mikhailquijano said fafda could stand for “Frightening Amount of Filipinos Dead Already.”
Others substituted it for song lyrics. The examples includes “fafda magic dragon” (for Puff, the magic dragon) and “bakit fafda, binawi mo pa, ang pag-ibig mo sa akin.”
Fafda also happens to be a name of a street food or snack from the Indian state of Gujarat, according to several food websites.
The PCOO made headlines recently when the state-run Philippine News Agency posted the logo of Dole Food Company to accompany a report from the Department of Labor and Employment.
It also came under fire when it posted an article from China’s Xinhua News Agency that was critical of the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling that invalidate Beijing’s sweeping claims over the South China Sea. The ruling was the result of a case the Philippines filed against China.