Several Facebook accounts are circulating a photo of Turkish police officers, who will supposedly be deployed to secure the Sept. 14 Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao parliamentary elections against fraud. This is false.
First posted by a user on Sept. 6, the post’s caption, which mostly contained misspellings, read:
“Turkiyé polis magbabantay sa kaona onahang parliament election sa BARMM???
Opang panatelihin na walang dayaan sa eleksyon…. Huhuliin nela ang lalabag at mandaraya….
Ito ay risulta na kanilang na obserb dahil ang karamehan sa media ay peke… kaya cla mesmo ang titingin para maiwasan ang dayaan at senongaling kagaya ng BFP…
(Turkish police to guard the first parliamentary election BARMM??? To ensure that there will be no cheating in the election…They will arrest those who violate the rules and commit fraud.
This is the result of what they observed because most of the media are fake…so they themselves will monitor the election to prevent cheating and lying, like the [Bangsamoro Federalist Party])”
Another FB page republished the revised caption through a graphic that still featured the photo of Turkish police on Sept. 8. This copy was subsequently reposted by a user on Sept. 10.
The Independent Election Monitoring Center for BARMM dismissed the claim in a Sept. 8 FB post, emphasizing that foreign police forces cannot be deployed to enforce, patrol, or police another country’s election.
“Election security in BARMM remains the responsibility of COMELEC-BARMM, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the Philippine National Police,” the IEMC-BARMM added.
Misrepresentation, misinterpretation
The fraudulent post has also misrepresented the photo of Turkish police from Anadolu Ajansi (AA), Türkiye’s state-run news agency, according to the IEMC-BARMM.
A separate reverse image search led VERA Files to Daily Sabah’s April 10 report, which credited the image to “AA Photo.” The caption described it as a parade in Kayseri, Türkiye that marked the Turkish Police Organization’s 181st anniversary, not their supposed deployment to the BARMM to guard the historic parliamentary polls.
Aside from the misuse of photo, the group said the spurious post may have misinterpreted an invitation letter dated Aug. 30 sent by Moro Islamic Liberation Front Chairman Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim to Türkiye’s Ambassador to the Philippines Niyazi Evren Akyol to witness, not police, the conduct of the maiden parliamentary polls.
The Turkish Embassy in Manila has yet to publicly announce whether it will deploy diplomatic missions following Ebrahim’s request.
The untrue claim spread after Ebrahim called for the deployment of election monitors from the United Nations, the European Union, the United States, the United Kingdom, Malaysia, Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Brunei, Spain, and Norway to help prevent irregularities and ensure the integrity of the historic elections.
The fictitious posts circulated by FB accounts and pages Bagong Kapantay Moro, Moro-Islamic Vibes and Samsudin (created on May 22, 2023) collectively garnered 2,699 reactions; 559 comments and 1,073 shares as of writing.
