AMID the outpouring of shock and grief on social media by Filipino basketball fans in the wake of Gilas Pilipinas' loss to Indonesia in the men's basketball final at the 31st Southeast Asian Games, one post on Instagram quickly caught attention.
It was no different from most of the posts of netizens fuming over the Philippines' first loss in the SEA Games in 33 years, except for one thing: the post was attributed to the page of the Samahang Basketbol ng Pilipinas (SBP) on Instagram.
[See Gilas to face Korea in a pair of tune-up games]
The post, which carried a SPIN.ph photo taken by Jerome Ascano in Hanoi in that shock 85-81 loss to Indonesia in Hanoi on Sunday night, was captioned 'Resign @coachchot' and carried the hashtag #BringBackCoachTab.
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So did the SBP's own social media page just throw the national coach under the bus?
The post was no longer in SBP's official Instagram page when we checked, but screenshots of the supposed post quickly spread on social media, raising eyebrows given the sensitivity of the situation.
A check with the national federation revealed that the handling of all of SBP's digital media assets, including on Instagram, has long been outsourced to a third party which a source declined to identify.
Was this another photoshopped content that was spread like any fake news? The SBP has not issued any official denial, if any, two days since the incident.
Was this a major boo-boo by the page administrator? Or was the SBP page hacked and later recovered?
Sources bared SBP officials are still 'looking into the matter,' adding an internal investigation is ongoing.
So let's see.