As earthquakes struck different parts of the Philippines, several Facebook pages are circulating videos claiming schools nationwide will shift to distance learning. These are fake and all clips are likely to have been generated using artificial intelligence.
Published on Oct. 11, a 21-second video shows a supposed news anchor reporting that a one-week modular and online classes in all schools in the country will be implemented from Oct. 13 to 17 due to the “threat of earthquake.”
Another 16-second news report further alleged that there will be “no face-to-face classes starting Oct. 15 to December 2025.” A separate page posted a 24-second video announcing there would be “no classes from Oct. 16 until Dec. 16 due to [earthquake] and country shaking.” Both videos also claimed that schools will switch to modular and online classes in the meantime.
The first two videos bore the logo of the Department of Education while the third carried that of the Department of Interior and Local Government. Links to an alleged DepEd memo and a list of areas where distance learning would take effect were attached in all posts.
In an Oct. 13 advisory, the DepEd dismissed the videos as “fake news” and reminded the public to get updates and information on basic education only from its official social media accounts.
On Oct. 12, DepEd Region XI also debunked a graphic claiming that no in-person classes would be held until December this year, describing it as “wrong information” and “fake news.”
The DepEd National Capital Region office did announce the suspension of face-to-face classes in all public schools in Metro Manila, from Oct. 13 to 14 due to the increasing cases of influenza-like illnesses and also the recent series of earthquakes that have occurred all over the country.
DepEd NCR urged schools to shift to alternative delivery modalities, either synchronous or asynchronous, “to avoid disruption of learning.” It also encouraged private schools to observe and conduct these measures.
As of Oct. 14, no memorandum from DepEd directing all schools nationwide to shift to distance learning has been published on its official website. The links included in the three spurious FB posts merely redirect netizens either to a product page of an online shopping platform or to unverified blog websites.
VERA Files ran the three videos circulated by multiple FB pages through the AI detection tool Hive Moderation, and found that all likely contain AI-generated content.
A watermark for Veo, Google’s AI video generation tool, is visible on the bottom right corner of the two videos, which claimed that no face-to-face classes will be held from October to December this year.
The fake videos surfaced a day after a “doublet earthquake,” with magnitude 7.4 and 6.8 tremors, occurred in Davao Oriental on Oct. 10. A doublet earthquake, according to the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, refers to “distinct or different earthquakes in almost the same area with two (or more) main shocks that have slight difference in magnitude.”
VERA Files has fact-checked a similar bogus claim of nationwide implementation of online classes in all schools last September. (Related: FACT CHECK: NO DepEd memo on nationwide online classes starting Sept. 1)
Posted by at least three pages, Edukasyon News Channel (created on Sept. 7, 2025 as Malasakit News Update), PH News Today (Aug. 31, 2025), and Dswd Tv. Network (Oct. 6, 2025), the three AI-generated videos have collectively garnered over 201,000 reactions, 8,256 comments, 146,400 shares and 16.9 million views.
