Trump rehashes debunked myth about Gen. Pershing in PHL

US President Donald J. Trump on Thursday took to Twitter to respond to an attack in Barcelona that resulted in the death of 13 people, including two Filipinos.

A van had plowed through a crowd at the city's center and police are treating it as an act of terrorism.

In order to quell the threat, Trump told the authorities to "study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught."

Study what General Pershing of the United States did to terrorists when caught. There was no more Radical Islamic Terror for 35 years!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 17, 2017

Trump was referring to General John Pershing, who served as a governor in the Philippines 1909 to 1913 in what was known as the Moro Province (encompassing Zamboanga, Lanao, Cotabato, Davao, and Jolo.)

Trump claimed that during his term, Pershing dealt with "Radical Islamic Terror" by lining up 50 terrorist and having 49 of his men shoot them with bullets dipped in pig's blood.

The same story was told in the campaign trail during the US Elections in 2016, where Trump went on to narrate how Pershing let one terrorist live so that he would tell the others what happened.

The story has been classified as false by fact-checking website Snopes.

Research by the website shows that Pershing treated violence as a last resort and he had drafted a letter to the Moros "expressing sorrow that his soldiers had to resort to killing them to enforce the order" when they refused to comply with the ban on firearms.

The letter reads:

I write you this letter because I am sorry to know that you and your people refuse to do what the government has ordered. You do not give up your arms. Soldiers were sent to Taglibi so that you could come into camp and turn in your guns. When the soldiers went to camp a Taglibi, your Moros fired into camp and tried to kill the soldiers. Then the soldiers had to shoot all Moros who fired upon them. When the soldiers marched through the country, the Moros again shot at them, so the soldiers had to kill several others. I am sorry the soldiers had to kill any Moros. All Moros are the same to me as my children and no father wants to kill his own children

Pershing's campaign resulted in 12 Moro casualties, but there were no executions.

Snope further noted that the story Trump has been perpetuating is nothing more than "a rumor created on the Internet."

The same story has been attributed to a Colonel Alexander Rodgers and Trump's own accounts include variations on how long "Radical Islamic Terrorism" supposedly vanished after the incident. —Aya Tantiangco/KG, GMA News