Alarmist

It’s probably a testament to social media’s reach and influence that one solitary Facebook post by someone who was supposedly into the Cebu City government’s security preparations for the Sinulog that warned city residents and their visitors of impending danger during the festivities had its intended effect which is to grab attention.

It doesn’t help, of course, that last month’s bombing in Leyte which injured more than 30 persons gave people just the right amount of anxiety that would have discouraged them from joining not just the revelry but the religious events that honor the Sto. Niño.

In securing an annual event as big as the Sinulog, it doesn’t take a genius to know that anything that can go wrong will go wrong, a.k.a. the so-called Murphy’s Law.

But that doesn’t mean law enforcers and the government should take a laid-back stance in securing the Sinulog and other major events in the city and the rest of the country.

Neither should the public allow complacency to seep in and relax their guard in the run-up to the Sinulog. It’s just that Facebook posts like the warning issued by this person who claimed to be part of a rescue group involved in preparations for the Sinulog have no place in the social media strata especially in the way it carried its message across.

Rather than print the full contents of the Facebook post here — it already had at least 4,000 likes and a few hundred shares and doing so would only be dangerous and fruitless without substantive, incontrovertible proof to back it up — suffice it to say that the Facebook user prefaced his message in what those familiar with the media industry would describe as “screaming headlines,” guaranteed to grab a casual online user’s attention.

The gist of the message is tantamount to gossip or fake news, which had been abundant lately in social media. Supposedly, the post claimed, the so-called “bomb attack” during the Sinulog parade would be done in the presence of media reporters so that it would draw maximum exposure for their group.

The Facebook post which claimed that the information came from a friend who also got the message from someone else is irresponsible and downright alarmist.

Whatever convinced the FB account owner to share that unverified message to the public is immaterial at this point. The fact is he and the others who shared it became an unwitting tool to whoever planned to spread the alarmist message in the first place. That someone, hiding comfortably behind the cloak of anonymity, either did it out of malice, simple overzealousness or with the motive of sowing fear among the public.

Unfortunately, there are others willing to accept hook, line and sinker anything that their friends tell them to post or share regardless of the consequences.

There are enough warnings issued by police and other law enforcement agencies to the public about being vigilant and cautious without others trying to cry wolf.