A YouTube video claims that the United Kingdom’s (U.K.) Royal Navy recently handed over its warship HMS Dauntless to the Philippine Navy. This is not true.
On Jan. 17, a YouTube channel uploaded an eight-minute and eight-second video bearing the headline:
“Natanggap ng Pilipinas ang pinakamapanganib na barkong pandigma sa buong mundo mula sa British Navy (The Philippines received the most dangerous warship in the world from the British Navy).”
Its thumbnail bore a breaking news label and featured a ship with a Philippine flag docked in a shipyard. The automated narration further claimed that the Philippine Navy received the HMS Dauntless during a recent handover ceremony in Subic Bay.
This is patently false. HMS Dauntless remains in active service under the British Royal Navy.
On the Royal Navy’s website, HMS Dauntless is still listed among their daring class destroyers made for anti-aircraft and anti-missile warfare.
The Type 45 destroyer returned to Portsmouth in December 2023 after its deployment to the Caribbean.
No handover ceremony was reported by the Philippine Navy on its official website and social media channels (here, here, here and here).
A photo of HMS Dauntless arriving at Cammell Laird shipyard in the U.K. was edited to show a Philippine flag.
The false video was uploaded six days after the Philippines and the U.K. signed a Memorandum of Understanding which seeks to enhance defense cooperation between the two countries.
YouTube channel TECH-89M’s (created on Nov. 13, 2019) video has 17,021 views as of writing.
Be careful of social media content that exaggerates facts. VERA Files Fact Check has observed that disinformation is often created after the Philippines meets with other countries to talk about defense matters.
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