Awkward! PH cultural office says program hosts aren’t doing Nazi salute in photos

People should have known better.

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Philippines yesterday denied allegations that the hosts of its online cultural program were doing the Nazi salute in photos released on Facebook.

“We would like to clear that the photos earlier released on the Padayon: The NCCA Hour gesture is a forward hand motion followed by a wave and accompanied by Padayon’s tag line ‘Let’s go!’ as seen in most of our video teasers,” the commission said in English and Filipino in a tweet.

“We are in no way encouraging or harboring Neo-Nazi beliefs /practices in the Commission. Following the comments on our earlier post, which we have already taken down, we will rethink of another hand gesture that better show our intent of moving forward,” it added in a follow-up tweet.

The photos can no longer be found on the commission’s Facebook page, but citizens are still annoyed at what the commission unwittingly had done. Netizen @Mariann46909097 wrote, “[A]re you really that dumb not to know that that was a Nazi salute?”

Wow NCCA… are you really that dumb not to know that that was a Nazi salute???

— Marianne FW (@Mariann46909097) January 25, 2021

Padayon was launched on Facebook earlier this month and featured different cultural topics in one hour. In a post, it says that “correct knowledge leads to freedom of thought. Culture is the key to heroism. All you need is one hour!”