ILOILO CITY -- The Philippine National Police (PNP) clarified that there is no truth to the news that a group is the loose and out to kidnap teenagers in the city and province of Iloilo.
‘It’s not true. This is fake news,” said Lieutenant Colonel Arnel Solis, spokesperson of the Police Regional Office (PRO-6).
The PRO-6 issued the statement in response to text messages that allegedly emanated from Jaro PNP in Iloilo City and were being circulated.
The text messages alleged that a group utilizing two vans that had arrived from Manila had allegedly taken into custody three teenage girls, who were allegedly being driven to the towns of Sara and San Dionisio in northern Iloilo province.
The text messages also gave out the alleged plate number of the two vans.
Solis told Manila Bulletin in an interview Friday, April 8, that whoever initially sent out the text message did use the real name of personnel from the Jaro PNP.
“But that personnel did not send it. They just probably use the name to make it believable,” Solis added.
The fake information circulating is not new as it already had several iterations over the past 10 years. But this time, the text message contained the name of a personnel of a police station.
Meanwhile, Solis urged the public to stop forwarding the messages.