Doctored graphic falsely attributes quote about deadly Philippine bombing to Muslim leader

This article is more than one year old.
Published on December 12, 2023 at 07:31
4 min read
By Ara Eugenio, AFP Philippines

A fabricated quote appearing to justify a deadly bomb attack on a Catholic mass in the Philippines' largest Muslim city Marawi in December 2023 has been shared repeatedly in a doctored graphic, falsely attributing it to a former minister from the local autonomous Muslim government. His office has denied he ever issued such a remark while an analysis of the graphic found it contains grammatical errors.

"Christians do not belong in Marawi City BARMM – that’s possibly why such an incident happened," reads the Tagalog-language quote in a Facebook graphic shared on December 3, 2023.

"Marawi City used to be called the Islamic City but because of Duterte, it got destroyed and infiltrated by some groups," the quote continues, which the post attributes to former BARMM Interior and Local Government Minister Naguib Sinarimbo.

Sinarimbo said on December 7 that he had resigned from his post and will be replaced by Sha Elijah Dumama-Alba, majority leader member of the Bangsamoro Parliament (archived link).

"BARMM" refers to the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, where the country's Muslim minority were given self-rule under former president Rodrigo Duterte as part of efforts to head off the lure of violent extremism.

Bangsamoro's jurisdiction covers the Philippines' largest Muslim city of Marawi, where a bombing -- later claimed by the Islamic State group -- during a morning Catholic mass at the Mindanao State University gymnasium killed four people and injured 50 others on December 3.

Screenshot of false post, taken December 7, 2023.

Decades of unrest in the region have seen a recurring pattern of militant attacks on buses, Catholic churches and public markets.

Islamist militant groups held Marawi under siege in 2017, resulting in a five-month battle that claimed more than 1,000 lives until the Philippine military wrested back the ruined city.

The same doctored graphic was shared alongside similar claims on Facebook here, here, here and here.

Some users left comments indicating they believed it was a genuine quote.

"Oh wow sir, how great of you? Are terrorists and radicals the only ones who have the right to go to Marawi?" one user said.

"Who is this dumb Attorney?" another posted.

But Sinarimbo has not issued any such remark in public as of December 12, 2023.

Fabricated quote

In a statement on Facebook on December 3, the BARMM Ministry of Interior and Local Government said the graphic was fake (archived link).

"For the record, neither this Ministry nor any Bangsamoro Government official ever said these heinous things about our Christian brothers and sisters," the statement reads in part.

The statement also noted the individual who shared the false graphic has a "history of spreading fake quote cards and other slanderous claims about the Ministry and Minister Sinarimbo."

Sinarimbo said on December 3 that "It is disheartening that some would take advantage of such heinous acts of terrorism and spend their time disseminating disinformation (archived link)".

He also condemned "in the strongest possible terms" the bombing incident in Marawi and called it a "heinous act of terrorism" (archived link).

Altered graphic

Reverse image searches on Google found the doctored graphic corresponds to elements in an image shared on the verified Facebook page of the Bangsamoro Government in December 2020 (archived links here and here).

The quote in the original graphic shares Sinarimbo's thoughts on why the Bangsamoro should not participate in the 2022 elections.

An AFP reporter who is fluent in Tagalog analysed the doctored graphic and found it contains grammatical mistakes. For example, it uses the words "ganyan," "binansagan," and "iilan" instead of "ganyang," "iilang" and "binansagang". Moreover, it contains publishing errors such as inconsistent capitalisation of words like "Marawi City" and "grupo".

Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored graphic (left) and the genuine one from December 2020 (right):

Screenshot comparison taken December 10, 2023.

A review of the Bangsamoro's Facebook page found an August 2023 post where it flagged another fabricated graphic with a false quote altered from the 2020 image (archived link).

The Bangsamoro currently uses a different design for posts sharing officials' quotes, as seen in this November 2023 post (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison between the doctored graphic (left) and a genuine graphic using a newer design from November 2023 (right):

Screenshot comparison taken December 10, 2023.

AFP also found no trace of the quote card on the official pages of the Bangsamoro government or its Ministry of Interior and Local Government.

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