Pictures of Sen. Risa Hontiveros doing farm work have been circulating online. These images are fake and generated using artificial intelligence.
On March 30, a Facebook page posted three photos of Hontiveros, two of them holding a machete, while engaged in manual farm labor.
The post bore the caption:
“Holy week na. Tuloy ang budolan (It’s Holy Week. The swindling continues).”
Another post bearing the same set of images also carried the caption:
“LOLA RISA NYO (sic). From Mangngingisda to magsasaka REAL QUICK!!! Ano Naman kaya sa sunod Ang pautot nito (YOUR GRANDMOTHER RISA. From fisherman to farmer REAL QUICK!!! I wonder what her next trick will be).”
These images are fabricated. A video of the senator was used in the prompts to create the images through AI.
VERA Files Fact Check searched for possible images fed to an AI tool to create the fake photos and found a video of Hontiveros discussing subsidies for the transport sector on March 23. A frame from this clip was possibly used in the AI prompts as the senator’s blouse and accessories match those in the fake images.
In one of the photos, the woman’s facial features are noticeably different from that of the lawmaker.
Hontiveros’ official FB page has released a statement calling these images “lies” and AI-generated.
VERA Files tapped the Deepfakes Analysis Unit of the India-based Trusted Information Alliance to further verify if the images were created by AI.
It ran the images in six AI-detection tools. Results from four out of six tools showed high likelihood that the images were AI-generated.
Google SynthID also found, with “Very High” confidence, that all the images were made with Google AI. Results from Hive AI image and deepfake detector similarly showed that they likely contain AI-generated content. WasitAI and AIorNot found two of the three images as likely created with AI, while Sightengine and Imagewhisperer found low chance of AI use in the images.
Based on source-checking and insights from DAU, VERA Files concludes that the images are fake and created using AI.
The fabricated images circulated five days after Hontiveros urged Malacanang to support the P52.8 billion supplemental budget bill to be used to assist those affected by the oil crisis, including the transport and agriculture sectors as well as overseas Filipino workers.
VERA Files has debunked other AI-generated content featuring the senator.
Seven posts by FB users and pages such as Kini Law (created on Jan. 9, 2021) and TATAK Du30 Legacy (created on July 6, 2022 as TATAK Duterte news update), collectively garnered 40,162 reactions, 10,211 comments and 3,139 shares.
