Pitiful Father and Son on Viral Post Not Filipinos

I saw on my Facebook News Feed a shared post by a certain Cindy Balbuena about a Filipino father who seems to have lost consciousness while working on the street. Add to that the fact that his son is soundly sleeping in his arms. It touched a lot of hearts, got shared by a lot of people and reposted by different Facebook pages. But the skeptic in me decided to search for more details. And lo and behold, I found out that they are not Filipinos.

A screenshot of the viral post by Cindy Balbuena.

A google search revealed that these photos has circulated the web as early as 2014, mostly in South East Asian websites. And when it reached the Philippines, they became Filipinos. One of the more prominent websites, When in Manila, posted this story and received some flack. In the comments section a user pointed out that the people on the photos could actually be from Myanmar based on the man's outfit and the text on what the woman was clutching. Another important clue is that the father was selling/carrying bird feeders, something that we don't see on Philippine streets.

Photo of father and son appeared in another website way before Balbuena's post.

(L) A woman clutching a purse with Burmese text. (R) The man is wearing Longyi commonly worn by Malay men.

A lot of those who shared and commented on the post were inspired by the father's dedication to work for his child. Some even aired their desire to help the poor people. Hopefully no one takes advantage of the situation and scam these kind-hearted Filipinos.

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Article About Rigged OAV Not (Totally) True

Did you share that article about a Smartmatic representative admitting fraud in the recently held OAV in Hongkong? Well you got duped, because it's fake!

An article about a Smartmatic technician confirming that the alleged vote rigging in Hong Kong was pre-planned has been making rounds since the Overseas Absentee Voting (OAV). The voting was held from April 9-May 9, 2016. The same article contains a video from GMA News reporting on OFWs' complaints, problems encountered by the voters.

Screenshot of the article link circulating on Facebook.

While it is true that there were OFWs who's names were not included in the voters' list (the voter's registration machine malfunctioned, as confirmed by COMELEC Comm. Arthur Lim), and that some complained about undervotes, nothing on the video mentioned about a Smartmatic technician who admitted that the voting process was manipulated. The same article mentioned that the Smartmatic representative confessed it to a certain OFW Global Movement Secretary General Gerard Lapuz, but a simple google search did not yield anything about Lapuz and the organization.

The article was from okd2.com, a satirical website. What makes the website easily deceive people is because the articles they publish mix facts with fiction. Although its About page mentioned that they inject false information for entertainment, people take every detail as fact. I guess netizens are quite lazy not to verify that.

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