The Great DPWH Photoshop Meme joins Rickrolling, LOLcats, and Dramatic Chipmunk at Online Meme Database

Well those three DPWH guys sure get around. Just today we found out they made it to the Daily Telegraph in London. It’s an article filed by Ian MacKinnon titled “Philippine Photoshop Goes Viral” featuring all the usual facts about the case.

Officials in the department said that the photomontage had been intended for an internal publication and had been posted by mistake.

But the furore reached as high as President Benigno Aquino’s office when his spokesman said today (MON) that the “overeager employee” who had taken it upon himself to post the image had been suspended.

Yet the damage has already been done. Wags have set up a rival Facebook page – DPWHere – with a helpful picture of the three engineers on a blank background so that they can be dropped into a setting of choice.

The DPWH trio has also been spotted in the definitive meme database KnowYourMeme.com, a site founded in 2007 now operated by Ben Huh’s Cheezburger Network.

In this site, the DPWH meme is known as “Floating Filipino Government Officials“ and is currently still in the process of being updated.

The DPWH meme’s entry into the veritable shrine of Internet memes brings it to the same home as classic Internet memes such as Rickrolling, Keyboard Cat, Dramatic Chipmunk, Chocolate Rain, and Rebecca Black’s Friday.

The Great DPWH Photoshop Meme Kicks Into Overdrive

The DPHWhere page on Facebook provides tools for making your own DPWH images

The folks at the DPWH probably thought that this morning’s release of their official statement on their Photoshopping escapade would be the end of their long drawn out online humiliation. But alas, that was not meant to be.

The Wall Street Journal’s online edition took notice and in a blog post by James Hookway, headlined the story as “Fake Photos of Philippine Officials After Typhoon Spark Furor”

Just as we had earlier pointed out ourselves, the WSJ piece noted the striking similarity between the DPWH situation and an incident in China earlier this year:

The backlash against the public works department’s Facebook posting recalled a similar incident in China in June, when three local government officials from Sichuan provinces were photographed while supposedly inspecting local roads. The three seemed to float above the road surface, prompting Internet users to ridicule the authorities and post their own images of the trio visiting, among other places, the moon, Mars and the White House.

Chinese authorities eventually acknowledged the images had been manipulated.

Philippine officials acted much faster to quash the growing controversy and removed the offending image. Information officers at the public works department said it was released by mistake and was supposed to be part of a montage for an internal publication. Information chief Beth Pilorin also posted an apology on the department’s Facebook page, saying the photo “was not clear yet before the staff posted it.”

The strangest aspect of the incident might be that top public works officials actually were there and there was no need to release the faked photo. The department quickly issued a new picture – this time real – of the undersecretary, Mr. Momo, and the regional director, Mr. Tagudando, picking their way through debris facing Manila Bay.

But Romeo Momo’s troubles aren’t over yet. The image of the three DPWH officials seems to have taken a life of its own, as scores of Netizens took to Photoshop and other image-editing software to drop Mr. Momo and his two luckless companions in a variety of settings.

The Great DPWH Photoshop Meme: The Official Apology

As the hilarious DPWH Photoshop meme rolls through the interwebs this morning, the department tries to do some damage control. This was tweeted by the @DPWHCO account today at 10:23 AM:

The statement on Facebook reads:

Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH Central Office)

DPWH OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON THE PHOTO POSTED IN THE DPWH FACEBOOK ACCOUNT: The DPWH Public Information Division wish to inform the public that Undersecretary Romeo S. Momo, DPWH NCR Director Reynaldo G. Tagudando and South Manila District Engineer Mike Macud had nothing to do with the earlier photo posted in the DPWH Facebook Account. We profusely apologize for any inconvenience that may have caused them and the general public. Rest assured that we shall exert more diligence and prudence in the execution of our mandate to inform the public of our plans, programs, projects and official activities. Said enhanced photo was not the official photo release of the Department. But we would like to inform the public that the three officials were actually on site as part of the Department’s Post Disaster Assessment activities.

They still haven’t given a reason for the “photo enhancement” however, or who did it. Heads will roll!