Philippine Navy rubbishes fake report on 'warship attacking Chinese surveillance drone'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 3, 2024 at 08:24
5 min read
By Ara Eugenio, AFP Philippines

As Beijing and Manila tussled over the hotly contested South China Sea, a YouTube video attracted thousands of views by falsely claiming to show a Chinese surveillance drone shot down by a Philippine warship in the disputed waters. Philippine navy officials told AFP the incident simply did not happen. The video shows various old and unrelated pictures, including one that has circulated since at least March 2020 in reports about the downing of a drone in Syria.

"BRP Antonio Luna has shown its might," the YouTube video's title says, referring to a Philippine navy ship.

"Shoots down Chinese Drone | CCG (China Coast Guard) stunned," it adds in Tagalog.

The video, which has more than 27,000 views since it was posted on December 19, 2023, shows a compilation of photos, including an aerial vehicle in flames, a navy ship and a drone.

A narrator, who presents the video like a news report, claims the Philippine Navy reportedly announced that the BRP Antonio Luna blew up a Chinese drone that it suspected of spying on Pag-asa island.

Pag-asa, which means "hope", is the Philippine name for the Thitu Island in the Spratlys, the largest island in the disputed South China Sea under Philippine control.

"This is the first time the Philippine Navy used a surface-to-air missile against a Chinese drone," the narrator says in Tagalog. "It warned it will do it again if China continues to illegally intrude Philippine airspace."

Screenshot of the YouTube video sharing the false claim, taken January 30, 2024.

The narrator also mentioned unsubstantiated reports about two other Philippine navy ships -- BRP Melchora Aquino and BRP Malabrigo -- blocking China Coast Guard vessel 3210 on its way to the disputed Scarborough Shoal.

The YouTube video -- which was also shared on Facebook here, here and here -- surfaced after tense standoffs between Beijing and Manila in disputed reefs that saw vessels from the two countries collide and Chinese ships blast water cannons at Philippine boats.

While the video features a disclaimer that it is intended "purely for entertainment purposes" and that some information is "not fully verified", some YouTube users appeared to believe it showed a genuine Philippine attack on China.

"Good job Philippine Navy. That's how it's done," one comment read.

"Keep fighting Philippines, that island is ours. Grateful we fought back," another wrote.

But Philippine Navy officials said the attack described in the video did not happen.

"No such shooting of a drone happened," Commodore Roy Trinidad, Philippine Navy spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, told AFP on January 30, 2024.

Philippine Navy spokesman Captain Benjo Negranza said separately that "the Naval Public Affairs Office did not release or have not released any information that is related to the video".

"We recommend that viewers get their news from reputable sources or from official Armed Forces of the Philippines and Philippine Navy accounts."

Old, unrelated images

Reverse image searches and keyword searches on Google found a picture of the aerial vehicle in flames seen in the video in a news report from March 2020.

"Watch...the moment a Turkish drone was shot down by Syrian army forces over Saraquib in the Idlib countryside," reads the Arabic title of the video report by Egypt-based Al-Ghad TV (archived here).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and Al-Ghad TV's video (right):

Screenshot comparison of the false video (left) and Al-Ghad TV's video (right)

Various news outlets published the same image in March 2020 -- including Sky News Arabia, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency and Turkey's Daily Sabah -- reporting that it showed the downing of a Turkish drone near the Syrian city of Saraquib by the Syrian government after it announced the closure of airspace over northwestern Syria (archived links here, here and here).

Meanwhile, the photo of a navy ship -- which appears in the thumbnail of the false YouTube video and at the one-minute, 30-second mark -- shows a US ship, not a Philippine vessel.

It shows USS Curtis Wilbur during a missile firing exercise on March 23, 2014, reverse image searches found.

The photo, shared in the archives of the US Department of Defense's Defense Visual Information Distribution Service (DVIDS), was taken from waters near Guam (archived link).

Below is a screenshot comparison of the ship in the false video (left) and in DVIDS' archives (right):

Screenshot comparison of the ship in the false video (left) and in DVIDS' archives (right)

The image of the drone shown at the video's one-minute, nine-second mark is also old and unrelated to current tensions in the South China Sea.

The photo appears in an article published by the South China Morning Post on September 1, 2022 about a Taiwanese drone defence system (archived link).

According to the photo caption, it shows a PLA TB-001 -- a medium-altitude, long-range combat and reconnaissance drone -- flying off Taiwan's east coast on August 30, 2022.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the drone in the false video (left) and in the SCMP's report:

Screenshot comparison of the drone in the false video (left) and in the SCMP's report

AFP has previously debunked other false claims about supposed maritime confrontations in the South China Sea here, here and here.

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