Supplier sorry for inverted PH flag during Palarong Pambansa drone show

Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 6) – Drone supplier DroneTech Philippines apologized for displaying an upside-down Philippine flag during its drone show at a 2023 Palarong Pambansa event.

The drone show depicted the Philippine flag with the red field on top and blue field at the bottom on Saturday’s closing ceremony at the Marikina Sports Center. The law dictates it should be the other way around.

The local government of Marikina City condemned the incident in a statement early Sunday morning.

"Mariing kinondena ng Marikina City government sa pangunguna ni Mayor Marcy Teodoro ang pangyayari at pinapakasuhan ang DroneTech PH upang madetermina ang mga legal na pananagutan ng kumpanya kasama na rin ang mga kalakip na kaparusahan at multa," it said.

[Translation: The Marikina City government, led by Mayor Marcy Teodoro, strongly condemns the incident and is pursuing legal action against DroneTech PH to determine the legal liability of the company along with the appropriate penalty and fine.]

An hour after, the drone supplier issued an apology to Teodoro, the local government, and the country for its "grave error" and the "inconvenience" its drone show has caused.

"We would like to clarify that this error in the Drone Show programming which was supposed to be tested days before could have been noticed and corrected [but] was not successfully done due to severe weather conditions and signal interference in the said area for several nights," it said.

"The company is sincerely sorry for this unintentional error in programming. As God is our witness, we have innocently made this mistake and have no malice or bad intentions on anyone and the people of Marikina and the Philippines as a whole," it added.

DroneTech Philippines also said it will make sure to "execute proper protocols in testing our future shows."