Proofreading error?

JEERS TO THE Manila Times for erroneously associating the acronym of the Philippine armed forces  with an international news wire organization in a report published in their online news portal.  The paper’s editor attributed the error to an over-zealous proof reader.

On March 17, The Manila Times published in its website a  story from the Philippine News Agency about the Department of National Defense’s (DND) allocating P5.4B for the purchase of two anti-submarine helicopters.

The news publication translated  the acronym “AFP” (Armed Forces of the Philippines) into Agence France-Presse, the France-based news agency,  in a quote from DND undersecretary for finance Fernando Manalo.

The Manila Times  said “The (purchase of) ASW helicopters is one of the projects included in the list of the Agence France-Presse Modernization Program. The project is for implementation.”

The original quote from the PNA report said: “The  ASW helicopters  (sic) is one of the projects included in the list of the AFP Modernization Program. The project is for implementation.”

Some readers of The Manila Times website noticed the inaccuracy and posted comments on the story.

Rene Bas, editor and publisher of The Manila Times, responded to a comment from a reader about the error: ” YES, you are right, very very right. Thanks for pointing out the error of a proof reader who unthinkingly changed the initials AFP to Agence-France Presse instead of Armed Forces of the Philippines.”

The Manila Times corrected the error in the post, but has yet to release an official acknowledgment of the error as of this writing.