Video of fire truck in Dubai misrepresented as Davao City’s
A promotional video filmed at a fire truck manufacturer’s facility in Dubai, United Arab Emirates has been falsely presented on Facebook as showing a Davao City fire truck.
The misleading video was posted on Oct. 5 by the Facebook page named Rose ofw news channel and carried the overlaid text “nice Davao city” and “DAVAO FIRETRUCK VS BBM FIRETRUCKS.”
The post compared the supposed Davao City fire truck with the three-wheeled firefighting vehicles dubbed “fire tricycles” amid criticism of the Marcos administration.
A reverse image search showed that the original video was posted on Facebook on Sept. 25 by the National Fire Fighting Manufacturing FZCO (NAFFCO) Vehicles, a Dubai-based manufacturer of firefighting equipment. The promotional video described the capability of the vehicle:
65 METRES OF FIREFIGHTING POWER. BUILT TO CONQUER HIGH-RISE FIRES. 🔥 NAFFCO Fire Rescue Water Tower.
The words “KUWAIT FIRE FORCE” appear on the side of the vehicle at the three-second mark, alongside the Arabic words "الإطفاء العام," which translate to “General Fire Extinguishing.”
Three flagpoles visible at the 10-second mark also appear in a photo posted on NAFFCO's Facebook page in 2016, with the UAE flag in the middle.
A user-contributed photo on Google Maps dated 2017 shows similar flagpoles at NAFFCO's headquarters in Dubai.
The video also falsely claimed that the Department of the Interior and Local Government bought the “fire tricycles” for P10 million each.
In an Oct. 12 fact check, VERA Files established that the fire tricycles were local government initiatives intended to help firefighters reach communities with limited road access. Its fact check did not investigate the NAFFCO video misrepresented as showing a Davao City fire truck.
As of this writing, the misleading post had garnered about 5,900 likes, 890 comments and 1,900 shares.
Versions of the video also circulated on Instagram and TikTok, including TikTok account @leur597, with 3,015 likes, 244 comments and about 39,200 followers, and Instagram account @iamshelo31, with 30 comments and 1,993 followers. (RO)
