Screenshot of the erroneous map as shown on the Philippines’ Department of Information and Communications Technology website.
KUCHING (July 18): Singapore appears to have taken over Sarawak, as shown in an erroneous map found in an article on the Philippines’ Department of Information and Communications Technology website.
By November, the five largest economies of Southeast Asia: the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, will sign an agreement on the integration of their mobile payment systems. This will make cross-border transfers much more efficient without using the USD. pic.twitter.com/UKP5dM7gHb
— Pingggoy (@pingggoy) July 16, 2022
The map was unwittingly shared by Twitter user @pingggoy in a tweet dated yesterday, where he posted the map along with the blurb: “By November, the five largest economies of Southeast Asia: the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Thailand, will sign an agreement on the integration of their mobile payment systems. This will make cross-border transfer much more efficient without using the USD.”
The tweet has since garnered 21,000 retweets and 79,000 likes, with many poking fun at it.
One user, @FriedriceE49, pointed out the obvious when he said “Singapore isn’t on Borneo island” while @meitanama noted another error when he pointed out: “Nice map, Singapore moved to Borneo and Brunei in the sea”.
Others seemed oblivious to the mistake, as they continued to discuss the financial aspects of mobile payment systems and currency issues.
The tweet was also picked up by a Malaysian online news portal on Facebook, where comments were even more hilarious.
User Adrian Low said “They took over Sarawak. It was their plan all along.”
User Le’ief JoeWell MarTeen seems enthusiastic with the comment “Sarawak join Singapore…ON!”
The erroneous map on the tweet was traced to the Philippine government website.
The said article was dated April 6, 2021 with the title “ASEAN Open Data Dictionary for ASEAN Connectivity Project”.
It was about the Philippines’ participation in the Kick-Off Meeting of the Development of ASEAN Open Data Dictionary for ASEAN Connectivity Project.