Jinkee Pacquiao has apologized for mistaking a foreign country’s flag as the Philippine flag in a social media post congratulating the first Filipino Olympic gold medalist Hidilyn Diaz.
The wife of the boxing champ-senator Manny Pacquiao on Tuesday, July 27, sent her well-wishes to Hidilyn via a series of Instagram stories, showing the emotional weightlifter during the Tokyo Olympics’ awarding ceremony when the Philippine flag was raised and the National Anthem was played.
Jinkee, however, wrongly used the emoji flag of Sint Maarten, a country situated in the Caribbean Islands, instead of the Philippine flag emoji.
Both flags consisted of the colors blue and red with a white triangle at the hoist side. But the Philippine flag has the blue horizontal stripe over the red one, contrary to that of Sint Maarten.
The Philippine flag’s white hoist triangle contains three stars and a sun while Sint Maarten’s consists of the emblem of Sint Maarten coat of arms.
Netizens have since called out Jinkee for confusing the countries’ flags online.
The entrepreneur-socialite reiterated her congratulatory post in an Instagram post hours later, and said sorry for the gaffe.
“Pasensya na po sa mali na flag ang napindot ko sa ig stories ko kahapon. ??? (forgive me ?#philippines?? ),” she wrote.
She added, “That was unintentional. Love you all! God is good! ✨?.”
