Two purported “news” Facebook pages posted two photos of Vice President Sara Duterte, claiming that she visited a camp of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front. These photos are fake and show telltale signs of artificial intelligence use.
Uploaded on Sept. 9, the photos showed Duterte walking through a crowd, accompanied by armed men in camouflage uniforms and tactical gear. One photo featured another individual walking alongside her in what seemed to be a rural area.
With missing key details such as the exact date and location where Duterte allegedly traveled, its caption partly read:
“Bumisita si Vice President Sara Duterte sa isang kampo ng MILF, isang pagkakataong nagpapakita ng kahalagahan ng dayalogo, pagkakaunawaan at pagtutulungan para sa patuloy na kapayapaan sa Bangsamoro
(Vice President Sara Duterte visited an MILF camp, an occasion that highlights the importance of dialogue, understanding, and cooperation in sustaining peace in Bangsamoro).”
Two other copies posted on Sept. 9 and 10 identified the camp where Duterte was supposedly spotted as that of the Bangsamoro Islamic Armed Forces, the MILF’s military arm.
A simple Google search using the entire caption and selected keywords yielded no official news reports substantiating the claim. A quick check of the official FB pages of Duterte and the Office of the Vice President likewise showed no photos, videos, or statements about a supposed visit to an MILF-BIAF camp.
VERA Files tapped the Deepfakes Analysis Unit of the India-based Trusted Information Alliance to verify if the images were generated using AI.
Of the six AI detection toolsโWasItAI, SightEngine, OpenAI classifier, ImageWhisperer, and Hive Moderationโit used to analyze the photos, four found a high likelihood that they were AI-generated, with one tool identifying both pictures as “likely deepfake.”
“In cases like this, we have to keep in mind that distinguishing between genuine compression and generation artefacts [is] getting difficult. Bad actors are known to have used compression as a way to shield/hide away obvious giveaways of generative/manipulated content,” an expert from the DAU noted.
VERA Files conducted multiple rounds of reverse image searching for images that may have been fed to an AI tool to create the fake photos and found this picture of Duterte during her visit in Nunungan, Lanao del Norte, based on the post’s caption.
A separate keyword search confirmed the vice president’s engagements in the province on June 23 to implement community outreach programs and join locals in celebrating the town’s anniversary, which was also posted on Duterte’s official FB page.
This likewise led VERA Files to two videos showing her visit to Lanao del Norte. A frame from these clips was possibly used in the AI prompts, as several background details match those in the fake images, such as the crowd, the colorful flags, and the three white vans. Noticeably, only security personnel and members of the Philippine National Police were seen escorting the vice president, contrary to what the fictitious posts depicted.
Based on source-checking and insights from DAU, VERA Files concludes the photos are fake and AI-made.
The bogus claim emerged days before the historic first-ever parliamentary polls in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and amid the ongoing impeachment of Duterte, who already announced her presidential candidacy in the 2028 elections.
Ahead of the May 2022 national election, both chairmen of MILF and Moro National Liberation Front declared their support for the presidential and vice-presidential candidacies of erstwhile VP Leni Robredo and then-mayor Duterte, respectively.
The posts with fabricated images, including those by FB pages ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐ฐ๐ฌ & ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฅ๐ข๐ ๐๐๐๐๐ข๐ซ๐ฌ (created on Sept. 14, 2023) and Bangsamoro Narratives Update (April 25, 2024), collectively received 15,512 reactions; 1,227 comments and 1,030 shares as of writing.
