Senator Ronald Dela Rosa shared an AI-generated deepfake video of fake Filipino students opposing Vice President Sara Duterte's impeachment, which went viral with over 7 million views and misled many viewers who believed it was authentic.
In June 2025, Philippine Senator Ronald 'Bato' Dela Rosa shared an AI-generated video on Facebook featuring two digitally created Filipino students defending Vice President Sara Duterte against impeachment proceedings. The 30-40 second video, created using Google's Veo AI video generator as indicated by its watermark, showed fake students arguing that the impeachment was 'politically motivated' and represented 'selective justice.' Dela Rosa shared the video to his nearly 1 million followers with a caption praising the students' understanding, despite the original post being marked with #AI hashtag. The video quickly went viral, receiving over 7.3 million views, 116,000 reactions, 19,500 comments, and 67,000 shares. Many viewers believed the students were real, with the sophisticated AI technology making the uniforms, accents, and urban Filipino setting highly convincing. When critics pointed out the video was AI-generated, Dela Rosa defended his actions, stating he agreed with the message regardless of whether it was authentic. Palace Press Officer Claire Castro criticized government officials for sharing disinformation, warning it erodes public trust. The incident occurred amid Duterte's impeachment proceedings, where she faces charges of corruption and plotting to assassinate President Marcos Jr.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
Human
Due to a decision or action made by humans
Intentional
Due to an expected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed