A Facebook page posted a video falsely claiming that students from elementary to college levels will get “educational cash assistance” from the Department of Social Welfare and Development if they register through links provided in the post. This is fake and the video bore signs of tampering using artificial intelligence, according to experts.
In a July 17 advisory, the Department of Education described as “fake news” the “AI videos” circulated by the FB page about such cash aid for students.
The FB page posted the 18-second video on July 8 bearing logos of the DSWD and DepEd to make it appear that the announcement about the supposed financial aid is official and legitimate. The video’s narrator, wearing a white polo shirt with an embroidered patch of DSWD on it, said:
“Lahat ng mga nag-aaral ay makakakuha ng DSWD educational cash assistance. Sa college, 6,000 pesos. Sa senior high school ay 4,000 pesos. Sa junior high school ay 3,000 pesos. Sa elementary ay 2,000 pesos. Kaya mag-register na online. Nasa post na ito ang registration link.
(All students can get DSWD educational cash assistance. In college, it’s P6,000. In senior high school, it’s P4,000. In junior high school, it’s P3,000. In elementary, it’s P2,000. So register online. The registration link is on this post.)”
The caption included four registration links for each of the educational levels. The links, in turn, redirect netizens to a blog website where they can fill out a form. This is fake and phishes personal information such as one’s name, address, age, mobile number, and even a copy of a student’s school ID.
The Education department reminded the public to stay vigilant and discerning of any form of misinformation and urged Filipinos to monitor announcements from its official social media channels.
The DSWD previously said it no longer provides direct financial assistance for educational purposes.
VERA Files Fact Check sought an expert assessment from the Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU), part of the India-based Misinformation Combat Alliance, which verifies harmful or misleading audio and video content produced using AI.
Running the FB video through Hiya, a deepfake voice detector tool, the DAU found the clip’s audio to be AI-generated.
Results from another AI detection tool, Hive, also found the first 10 seconds of the audio to be AI-generated, but noted the remaining eight seconds were found to be “not AI.”
Results from AI detection tools Hiya and Hive, used by the DAU, drew positive indications that the audio of the clips was likely to be AI-generated. Screenshots from DAU.
Hive also detected one segment in the video where “the speaker’s face was marked as bearing signs of AI tampering,” said DAU.
Results from AI detector Hive show the narrator at the 0:14 mark of the video is likely to be a deepfake. Screenshots from DAU
An expert from the DAU further identified other pieces of evidence to show “the video is not genuine.”
In this portion of the clip, despite the blurred background that “makes the discernment of obvious visual artefacts difficult,” the DAU said, when the student in the middle moved his arm, its shape momentarily changed.
Two screenshots taken by the DAU from the video showed the drastic change in the speaker’s dentition. It noted that the dental arrangement of the speaker is “a common element of AI tampering.”
“See how his lower set of teeth [is] smoothened and not distinguishable and resembles a white patch? Also, only one finger of his has nails, and the rest don’t,” the DAU added, referring to the image below.
VERA Files has previously fact-checked similar bogus claims on supposed educational cash assistance from DSWD and DepEd. (READ: FACT CHECK: NO educational cash aid from DSWD, FACT-CHECK: Circulating graphics on DepEd cash assistance for students FAKE)
Published by FB page Education News Update (created on June 19, 2025), the fake and AI-tampered video has so far received 522,000 views, 8,200 reactions, 1,100 comments and 2,500 shares.
