Following the malicious post on People's Television NetworkPTV's Twitter account on Tuesday, March 26, with the caption "President Rodrigo R. #dutertepalpak BTS reiterated his order to provide free masks for the public especially to those who cannot buy their own," the state-run broadcaster vowed to take action against the people behind it.

“The erroneous message that was inadvertently posted by the PTV New Media was the result of autocorrecting systems in the text entry phase and a failure to adequately review and screen the message that got posted,” PTV said in a statement.

“The management will certainly institute disciplinary actions against members of the social media team who are behind the erroneous posting,” it added.

The state broadcaster also noted that its New Media division truly regrets the error and takes full responsibility for the lack of oversight.

“At around 7:00 p.m., a post of PTV on Twitter circulated with the wrong hashtag which was never in the original caption which reads: ‘President Rodrigo R. Duterte reiterated his order to provide free face masks for the public especially to those who cannot buy their own’,” the PTV said in its statement.

The #DutertePalpak hashtag was used by administration critics on Monday to commemorate one year since lockdowns were implemented in the country to combat the continuous increase of the COVID-19 cases. The hashtag was also used to call out the government’s allegedly insufficient handling of the pandemic.