The spokesperson of Rodrigo Duterte says the Philippine presidential candidate gave Singapore “its own dose of medicine when Duterte retorted jokingly that he will burn the Singapore flag again.”
To explain the logic behind the flag-burning “joke,” Peter Tiu Laviña referred to the now-controversial meme implying that Singapore prime minister Lee Hsien Loong was endorsing Duterte. Laviña pointed out that Singapore had reacted “to such trivial matter” by “calling for [an] investigation” into the source of the meme.
“It was a meme. A humorous image in social media which is a open space, meaning anyone could have made that up,” Laviña argued in a Facebook post on May 2.
“It’s a tit-for-tat. Only the onion-skinned would actually be affected,” he added.
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On May 2, Singapore newspaper The Straits Times reported that Duterte had threatened to burn the Singapore flag. It also published the story online, but the page became inaccessible by late morning and returned a “you are not authorized to access this page” error.
The ST report cited two sources.
First was The Maharlikan, a no-masthead website that came into existence in time for the presidential election.
Second was a GMA TV 24 Oras report about a campaign rally in Daet, Camarines Norte, where Duterte told the audience how he burned the Singapore flag in 1995 because the city-state’s impending exeucution of Flor Contemplacion, a Filipino maid convicted of murder in Singapore 1995.
Laviña’s Facebook post is the first proof — and admission — that Duterte did, indeed, threatened (albeit “jokingly”) to burn the Singapore flag again.
The report worried overseas Filipino workers in Singapore, who feared backlash from the local community.
In Sep 2015, a Filipino nurse named Ello Ed Mundsel Bello was sentenced to three months in prison for sedition after he posted an incendiary statement on his Facebook: “Singaporeans are loosers (sic) in their own country, we take their jobs, their future, their women and soon we will evict all SG loosers (sic)out of their own country hahaha.” Bello received another one-month sentence for lying to police during investigation by claiming his account had been hacked.
On forum sites in Singapore, some users have posted anti-Filipino comments upon reading the ST report.
One concerned Filipino resident in Singapore, Orion Perez, even made a 16-minute video addressed to Singaporeans explaining the incident: “If you are angry about the ‘news article’ talking about the leading Filipino candidate for president who allegedly said ‘let’s burn Singapore’s flag’ after the S’pore government complained about some memes that were created which misrepresent PM LHL as ‘endorsing’ the leading candidate, you definitely need to watch this video.”
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