Inflated cash aid claim misleads Philippine social media users

This article is more than one year old.
Published on March 22, 2023 at 08:06
3 min read
By Lucille SODIPE, AFP Philippines

A doctored image of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos sitting in front of bundles of cash has been repeatedly featured in misleading posts that claim it shows his government discussing a cash aid programme amounting to nine trillion pesos ($164 billion) -- more than the government's entire annual budget. The posts circulated after the government announced a fresh round of cash assistance for poorer households, which the archipelago's finance chief said actually amounts to only nine billion pesos. Nine trillion pesos represents the estimated cost of Marcos' flagship infrastructure projects.

The doctored image was featured as the thumbnail of a YouTube video published on March 9.

It shows President Ferdinand Marcos, popularly known as "BBM", during an economic planning meeting on the same day.

The image, however, had been digitally manipulated to add wads of one thousand peso bills in front of him.

The YouTube video's Tagalog-language headline says: "Wow, cash aid for Filipinos are already being discussed! Nine trillion pesos worth of projects by President BBM."

This claim appears to have misled some people to believe nine trillion pesos represents the government's total cash aid.

"Can't we receive a million pesos per Filipino? We're only a population of 100 million-plus," one wrote.

"Trillions? Why not allocate the money to servicing the country's debt?" another said.

A screenshot of the misleading thumbnail image on the video, captured on March 19, 2023

Similar posts featuring the doctored image have also been shared on Facebook here, here and here.

Philippine finance chief Benjamin Diokno announced on March 7 the government will continue to provide cash aid for the archipelago's poorest households.

But the amount he mentioned alloted for the programme was 9.3 billion pesos ($170 million) -- much lower than what's indicated in the posts.

"This is 500 pesos for two months, so that means 1,000 pesos for 9.3 million households," Diokno said.

"We have already identified where to source the money and maybe in a few days or in a few weeks, we will be able to distribute it to those affected by inflation," he added.

Infrastructure projects

Meanwhile, Google keyword searches found the video in the misleading posts was taken from a government press conference on March 9.

The original footage posted to YouTube by Radio Television Malacanang, a broadcasting service under the president's office, shows economic planning chief Arsenio Balisacan announcing infrastructure projects greenlit by his agency.

At the six-minute and 41-second mark, he says: "The approved new list of infrastructure flagship projects includes a total of 194 projects amounting to about nine trillion pesos."

He adds the majority of these are highways and water resources projects such as irrigation and flood management.

Below is a screenshot comparison between the video in the misleading posts (left) and the original footage of Balisacan's press conference:

While one journalist did ask about cash aid and wage increases during the press conference, Balisacan only mentioned wages in his reply.

Their exchange can be heard from the video's 25-minute and 36-second mark.

"My question is, can the government grant another wage increase or even the cash assistance being requested by the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines, like before?" the journalist asked in Tagalog.

Balisacan answered: "Our thrust, as much as possible, is to generate jobs, opportunities that will last long, are sustainable. And so that people, our workers, can earn sufficient... can have wages that can comfortably support their needs."

Nine trillion pesos far exceeds the entire Philippine government budget for 2023, which stands at 5.28 trillion.

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