This photo shows a subway being constructed in Moscow, not the Philippines

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 2, 2021 at 08:15
2 min read
By AFP Philippines

A photo has been shared hundreds of times in multiple posts on Twitter and Facebook in January 2021 alongside a claim it shows a subway construction project in the Philippine capital Manila. The claim is false: the photo, which has circulated online since at least October 2015, in fact shows a subway tunnel construction in Moscow. The Philippine transport department told AFP that the Manila subway construction project is still in its early stages.

The photo was posted on Twitter on January 28, 2021. It has been shared more than 300 times.

A screenshot of the misleading post, taken on February 1, 2021

"Preview of ongoing Metro Manila Subway. Are you excited, fellow DDS? Anti-Duterte folk and woke [people] are forbidden to ride here," the Tagalog-language tweet reads.

“DDS” is an acronym for “Diehard Duterte Supporters”, a term which fans of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte sometimes use to refer to themselves.

The construction of a multi-billion subway connecting portions of Metro Manila is one of the Duterte administration’s flagship infrastructure projects.

The photo was also shared here, here and here on Facebook alongside a similar claim.

The claim is false.

A reverse image search on TinEye found the photo was in fact posted on October 29, 2015 on iStock, an international stock photography agency.

The iStock caption reads: “The construction of the subway tunnel”; one of its tags reads: “Moscow - Russia photos".

Screenshot of the photo on iStock’s website taken on February 1, 2021

The same photo has been published on other stock photo websites, including Shutterstock and 123RF. The photo is titled “Construction of the subway tunnel in Moscow” on both sites.

The photos were posted shortly after Moscow announced a $3 billion project to extend its overcrowded metro.

Contacted by AFP, the Philippine transport department said that tunnel boring had not yet started for its Manila subway project as of February 1, 2021.

“Please rely only on photos released by the (Department of Transportation). That photo is not from us,” transport assistant secretary Goddes Hope Libiran said in a text message.

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