CLAIM: Bank branch required a client to kneel before teller behind plastic-covered counters
RATING: MISSING CONTEXT
Netizens are circulating an old photo of a bank branch where a client is seen kneeling before a teller behind plastic-covered counters, without adequate explanation or context.
Security Bank has clarified that this was a photo from 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 outbreak, and is not the setup in its branches at present.
Social media users poked fun at the bank for having a “confessional setup,” or making clients kneel before tellers like penitents in a confessional.
One user who posted the photo on the “Bored Tambayan” Facebook group implied that the experience was like the moment before communion is distributed during Mass.
The user captioned the photo with a modified response of Mass participants to the priest’s invitation to communion during the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
Contacted by PressOne.PH, Security bank said in a statement, “The circulating photo on social media was taken in 2020 at the height of the pandemic wherein IATF regulations mandated the strict compliance of social distancing in all areas.”
“The set-up has since been updated and the Bank continues to ensure the safety of all its customers,” the bank said.
The Bored Tambayan post has been engaged with more than 30,000 times and shared more than 18,300 times.
Engagement was further boosted when it was reposted by the PGAG comedy site’s Facebook account. That post was engaged with more than 7,000 times and shared more than 1,000 times.
This fact-check was produced by PressOne.PH as part of a fact-checking grant from the Philippine Fact-Checker Incubator (PFCI) Project. The PFCI supports news organizations to allow them to meet global fact-checking standards under the International Fact-Checking Network’s Code of Principles.
PressOne.PH believes that fact-checking is essential to combating misinformation and disinformation, and in informing and educating citizens and voters. Read more of PressOne.PH’s Fact-Checking Policy by clicking here.
The public is welcome to send feedback or requests for fact-checks at factcheck@pressone.ph.
FACT-CHECK: EDCA is not unconstitutional
: A manifesto shared by a pro-China personality falsely claimed that the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement between the Philippines and the United States is banned under the constitution.
FACT-CHECK: Taylor Swift did not make any comment about US ability to stop war in Taiwan
An X user made the false claim that Taylor Swift had commented about the United States’ naval capability to deter an invasion of Taiwan.
FACT-CHECK: Facebook post uses wrong painting to depict first Mass in PH
A Facebook post used the wrong painting to depict what it described as the first Mass in the Philippines.