Philippine child care agency warns of false posts about 'abandoned babies'

Published on September 10, 2025 at 04:34
3 min read
By Lucille SODIPE, AFP Philippines

Old photos showing the discovery of an abandoned child in the Philippines have resurfaced in posts misrepresenting them as depicting another recently found deserted baby -- a social media trend the country's National Authority for Child Care says capitalises on a child's vulnerability to "gain social media traction". The photos and similar images previously circulated in posts and news reports from October 2020.

"Look!! A newborn boy wrapped in white cloth was found hanging from a tree beside the road at Taglatawan village, Bayugan city, Agusan del Sur on Friday morning," reads the caption of a collage shared on Facebook on August 24, 2025.

The collage, which has been shared more than 10,000 times, purportedly shows the abandoned baby and images of where he was discovered.

Screenshot of the misleading Facebook post captured on September 4, 2025, with an orange X added by AFP

But authorities in Bayugan city say the claim is "false and baseless" (archived link).

"We urge the public not to spread unverified information that may cause unnecessary panic and confusion in the community," reads their August 29 statement.

The photos also circulated elsewhere on Facebook, Threads and TikTok.

The Philippines' National Authority for Child Care (NACC) has spoken out against the social media trend, saying it is "demeaning to a child, immoral, and a plain act of abuse and exploitation" (archived link).

The NACC, which oversees adoption and foster care in the country, "urges caution against the proliferation of fake news on the supposed discovery of a foundling or a supposed abandoned child with no known facts of birth or parentage only to capitalize on a child's vulnerability and gain social media traction."

"This social media trend is a step backward on the policy and efforts of the Government to accord full respect for the life and dignity of a child," it adds in its August 27 statement (archived link).

A reverse image search on Google coupled with a keyword search on Facebook found several photos used in the collage were originally posted on the platform on October 16, 2020 (archived link).

According to a post by local broadcaster Kevin Pamatmat, the photos show the discovery of a newborn who was abandoned in Liliw town, Laguna province.

Its caption says the baby girl was found by a man who had been resting under a tree.

"That incident happened a long time ago, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020," he told AFP on September 7, 2025.

Other images in the collage depict the same incident and were shared by Lourdes Arcasetas, the former mayor of nearby Nagcarlan town, on Facebook on October 16, 2020 (archived link).

Screenshot comparisons of the misleading post (left) and the posts from October 2020 (right)

Similar visuals were also used in reports by local media outlets News5 and GMA News at the time (archived here and here).

A separate reverse image on Google found the close-up photo of a baby was used on a Vietnam-based website in 2021 (archived link).

Screenshot comparison of the misleading post (left) and the Vietnamese post from 2021 (right)

AFP has also previously debunked other misleading claims about children in the Philippines.

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