Video of 2019 bus accident falsely shared as recent 'killer curve' bus crash in the Philippines
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on December 14, 2023 at 09:42
- 3 min read
- By Jan Cuyco, AFP Philippines
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Warning: Graphic images
The graphic video showing bus passengers bracing and gripping their seats before what appears to be a violent crash that flings some of them across the cabin was shared on Facebook here on December 7, 2023.
"Actual dashcam footage of the Ceres bus before it plunged into a ravine. Rest in peace to those who died," reads the video's mixed English and Tagalog-language caption.
The video was also shared on Facebook here, here and here.
Local media reported that 19 people were killed when a passenger bus careered off a road and plunged down a mountain in the central Philippines on December 5 (archived link).
The vehicle, operated by the Ceres bus company, had been travelling in Hamtic municipality in Antique province.
"I call that place 'killer curve'... it was already the second Ceres bus that fell off there," Governor Rhodora Cadiao said on local radio.
"With the many number of deaths that road must be abandoned... and make another road to make that area safe."
Deadly road accidents are common in the Philippines, where drivers frequently flout the rules and vehicles are often poorly maintained or overloaded.
The video circulating on Facebook, however, was not taken from the bus crash in Antique.
Bukidnon accident in 2019
A reverse image search on Google using keyframes from the video shows it has circulated online since 2019.
Local news outlet GMA News and its late night newscast Saksi published the same dashcam footage on October 2, 2019 (archived links here and here).
Below is a screenshot comparison of the falsely shared video (left) and the GMA News video published in 2019 (right):
Content warning
Their Tagalog-language captions read: "Passengers were comfortably seated on a bus driving through Bukidnon. But moments later, the bus careened and fell on its side and the passengers were thrown from their seats."
Bukidnon is a province in the southern Philippines.
The video was credited to Aminoden Guro from the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board, the country’s transport regulator. At the time, Guro was the regulator's regional director responsible for Bukidnon.
Guro told AFP on December 13, 2023 that the falsely shared video shows the 2019 bus accident.
"This is not related to the Antique [bus accident]," he said. "We get the dashcam footage from the bus company whenever we investigate accidents."
According to reports by Inquirer.net and the Mindanao Gold Star Daily, the passenger bus skidded and fell on its side along a road in Impasugong town, Bukidnon on September 28, 2019, killing two passengers and injuring 20 others (archived links here and here).
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