A fake clip of Vice President Sara Duterte exposing a “financial investment” that the Marcos administration has been supposedly hiding from the public is circulating online. The clip was digitally manipulated.
On July 11, a Facebook (FB) user posted the 90-second video which was made to look like a TV Patrol news report. It bore the logo of the ABS-CBN news program and the headline:
“EXCLUSIVE: SARA DUTERTE’S POST-TRIAL INTERVIEW! SHE TOLD THE TRUTH!”
At the 10-second mark, “Duterte” said:
“Today, the Philippine government headed by Ferdinand Romulades (sic) Marcos Jr. is trying to silence me. False accusations are being brought against me only because I decided to tell the truth where the Filipino elite really gets their money from and how they live in luxury at the expense of a system hidden from ordinary people. It’s simple. They earn money on financial investments that no one will tell you about on TV. Anyone can enter this system, you only need P15,000 to start.”
The vice president went on talking about the investment scheme that would lift Filipinos from poverty.
The clip was altered. Duterte did not endorse any investment platform, and neither did she hold any “post-trial” interview.
Duterte presscon footage was altered
Footage from Duterte’s June 27 press conference, livestreamed by News5Everywhere’s YouTube channel, was manipulated to fool netizens.
In the media briefing, Duterte took jabs at the administration’s moves regarding former president Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest and turnover to the International Criminal Court, among other issues.
A fake audio of Duterte was laid over a clip taken from the livestream. Similar to the fraudulent Ramon Ang investment scam video we flagged in July, this fake Duterte clip likely used voice cloning and lip syncing so that the fake Sara Duterte’s mouth movements moved in sync with the fake script.
It is notable, too, how the lip syncing was not very polished as the mouth movements were unnatural. Duterte’s voice in the real footage was also significantly lower in tone compared with her impostor’s.
Watch the video below for a comparison:
Experts also observe manipulation
VERA Files reached out to Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) of the India-based Misinformation Combat Alliance to check if the video was manipulated through AI.
The DAU first noted the heavy manipulation in Duterte’s mouth region.
“Her teeth are non-distinguishable as they blend together to form a white bar behind the lips. In some frames, as she opens her mouth, a few teeth to the sides (her cheek area) seem to disappear from view and reappear in subsequent frames,” the DAU said.
The DAU also tapped ConTrails AI, a software development company that helps organizations detect AI, for expert advice. ConTrails AI similarly observed signs of audio tampering noting that the track is not continuous.
“There are audible cuts/punctuations in her purported statements, similar to when disparate [or different] audio fragments are stitched together. This could be a sign of audio tampering,” ConTrails AI added.
ConTrails AI also ran the clip through AI video and audio analysis tools but the results were negative or did not indicate that the clip was manipulated through AI. They explained that there are many reasons why audio classifiers are not able to detect synthetic voices such as background noise and presence of music.
Post-trial interview? No ‘trial’ happened in the first place
The video’s headline claimed that Duterte made her revelation at a “post-trial” media interview. This is impossible, because no such trial has taken place.
The Supreme Court unanimously voided the impeachment complaint against Duterte, ruling that it violated a constitutional prohibition on filing more than one impeachment complaint against the same official within a single year. The House of Representatives had earlier endorsed a fourth impeachment complaint to the Senate, after not having acted on three other filings.
The Court’s decision bars any Senate trial from proceeding and a new impeachment case cannot be filed until Feb. 6, 2026. The House filed a motion for reconsideration on Aug. 4.
VERA Files has debunked other altered content that promotes fake investment opportunities using “endorsements” from public figures such as the business tycoon Ang and President Bongbong Marcos.
This particular video circulated the same day the vice president visited her father, currently detained at the ICC detention facility in The Hague, Netherlands. The Duterte patriarch is awaiting his confirmation of charges hearing on Sept. 23 in relation to crimes against humanity he allegedly committed under his administration’s drug war.
Two posts from FB users collectively garnered 729 comments, 1,908 shares and 285,100 views. A copy posted on TikTok also garnered 18,500 reactions, 1,300 comments, 3,972 shares and 287,700 views.
