The state-owned People's Television Network (PTV) took responsibility for the social media post that erroneously replaced President Duterte's surname with the hashtag #DutertePalpak (Duterte is a failure).
In a statement Wednesday, March 17, PTV explained that the now-deleted hashtag appeared after it was auto-filled by the system and was also overlooked by the network's social media managers.
"The erroneous message that was inadvertently posted by the PTV New Media, as it turned out, was the result of auto-correcting systems in the text entry phase and a failure to adequately review and screen the message that actually got posted." the network's statement read.
"PTV New media deeply regrets the error and takes full responsibility for the oversight," it added.
According to the network, those responsible for the incident will be sanctioned.
"The management will certainly institute disciplinary actions against members of the social media team who are behind the erroneous posting," it said.
PTV launched an investigation after a tweet about President Duterte's directive to provide the public with free face masks bore the #DutertePalpak hashtag which was used by critics of the administration to mark the first year of the coronavirus (COVID-19) lockdown.
"President Rodrigo R. #dutertepalpak BTS reiterated his order to provide free masks for the public especially to those who cannot buy their own," the tweet made at 7:24 p.m. on March 16 read.
The #DutertePalpak hashtag trended on social media on the first day of the lockdown on Monday as the Philippines faced a spike in COVID-19 cases amid new and more contagious variants of the virus spreading in the country.
Malacañang was quick to deny that the Duterte administration failed in addressing the pandemic, blaming the fast-rising number of cases on the nature of viruses to mutate.