An 11-year-old photo of then Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte throwing a punch at a court sheriff in Davao City has been manipulated to make it appear like she was forcing a man to participate in a “mandatory toothbrush” drill.
In the Dec. 4 post of Kotlab Onil in the parody Facebook group named House of Representa-thieves: Butasang Pambulsa, a toothbrush was inserted in the photo of now Vice President and Education Secretary Duterte with Sheriff Abe Andres during a demolition operation at a contested property in Barangay Soliman in Davao’s Agdao district, accompanied by a caption claiming this was how the mandatory toothbrush drill would be like.
A reverse image search showed that the original image was posted online on July 2, 2011 by the Philippine Daily Inquirer, which in turn grabbed it from the video of the incident between Duterte and Andres recorded by ABS-CBN Davao.
The photo was captioned:
FAST AND FURIOUS. Mayor Sara Duterte, popularly known as Inday Sara, is about to throw a punch at Davao City Sheriff Abe Andres, who refused to grant her request to delay the demolition of squatters’ shanties on Friday.
The manipulated photo surfaced online after Duterte announced in a television interview on Dec. 1 that she was pushing to include mandatory toothbrush drills in the K to 12 program for schoolyear 2024-2025.
Kotlab Onil’s post has garnered 826 reactions, 25 comments and 195 shares as of writing. The public group where this user posted the manipulated photo has 99,900 members. (ANPC)