FACT CHECK: Davao City Water District slams fake Facebook page

In the midst of Davao City’s water woes at its Line 2 connection, a fake account imitated the Davao City Water District (DCWD), using its logo and name to humiliate the company.

The imitation page did not indicate that it was a satire account. It also falsely categorized itself as a government agency. As of September 19, the fake page has gathered at least 1,000 followers.

The DCWD announced on Sunday night that it has only one official Facebook page, followed by around 111,000 users.

“This is to emphasize that this is the only official FB page of (the) Davao City Water District. DCWD does not honor all other pages or account bearing our logo and name,” it stated.

The water utility said it had reported the account “as their misrepresentation does not help the ongoing challenges in our operation.”

“Using our logo or emblem unofficially is punishable by law,” the company added.

The fake page has since renamed itself to the “Davao City No Water District” and changed its logo with a more satirical meme. 

The fake page was created on Saturday, according to its page’s transparency portion. 

All areas of the Dumoy water supply system (WSS) Line 2, covering at least 60,000 connections, lost their water supply after a glitch occurred at 9:50 p.m. on September 15.

The water utility had said it would need time to address the electrical and mechanical problems to restore the water supply to the affected areas.

The DCWD announced that full operations for the Dumoy WSS Line 2 resumed at 1:16 p.m. on Sunday, with the completion of electrical repairs and the installation of six booster pumps.  

The water interruption dismayed affected residents, with one netizen calling out Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte to remove the “Davao City Life is Here” tag because of the poor water service to the public. The netizen urged Duterte to do something to help improve the delivery of water service to the constituents.

Duterte, a first term mayor, said he had already brought up the matter with the DCWD management. 

The DCWD is a government-owned and controlled corporation, and not under the Office of the City Mayor.

As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes leads or suggestions from the public to potential fact-check stories. (Yas D. Ocampo / MindaNews)

(This fact-check piece was produced with the support of Internews’ Philippine Fact-Checker Incubator Project.)