G.A. Viray
The internet and the social media has been a means to share information to millions of people regardless if the news is good or bad, true or hoax. Any photo can become a social media sensation. People can create stories out of just a certain photo even without verifying its source.
Recently, photos of a badly beaten boy have been circulating in the social media. In the photo, a boy was tied to a pole and had many beatings on his back. It was posted on Facebook and was even shared in local Filipino Facebook pages. The boy looked like a Filipino and some comments on the photo even claimed that they already rescued the boy and that what happened to him was done by street kids.
But what really happened to the boy? Is he a Filipino?
A report from Thai PBS verifies that the boy is a seven-year-old from Banglane district of Nakhon Pathom in Thailand. While it is true that the photos helped rescue the boy, there is no truth that the kid was beaten by street kids nor was he a Filipino.
The boy, apparently, was beaten by his aunt because he stole candies at a convenience store. According to the boy’s grandmother, her daughter was very furious that she beat him up and tied him to a pole in their house.
Currently, the boy is under the custody of a child care centre of the Children’s Foundation in Nakhon Pathom. Police have also mentioned that they could not file any charges to the boy’s aunt as of the moment because of the sensitivity of the issue. The boy’s aunt, however, is under probation.
