NICA: Culprits behind Marcos deepfake video used VPN

The authorities are having a challenging time tracing the exact location of the culprits behind President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s widely shared deepfake video, a senior official from the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) said on Thursday.

In a televised public briefing, NICA Deputy Director General for Special Concerns Abelardo Villacorta said identifying the location of the perpetrators behind these deepfakes as the culprits may have used a virtual private network (VPN) to hide themselves.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is used to make deepfake video or audio, which can change recordings so that it sounds like a certain person is saying things that they didn't say.

A deepfake video that circulated online last month showed that Marcos “seemingly asked the Armed Forces to act against another nation" amid the rising tensions against China on their overlapping claims in the West Philippine Sea.

But Malacañang clarified that Marcos never gave the military such instructions, adding that a 'foreign actor' is the culprit behind the footage.

"Although we know that they came from one country, it turns out their VPN is in another country. So it is becoming very challenging on our part to identify these people involved in this kind of activity," Villacorta said.

"But we have some partnerships with other intelligence agencies not only domestic but international; our partnership is very strong," Villacorta added.

Asked about the identities of the people involved, he said: “Yeah, we have identities already.”

Villacorta also mentioned that they are coordinating closely with the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), our cybersecurity agencies, and Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and the Philippine National Police (PNP).

"We held a meeting (last week) with the AFP and established a framework for joint operations, focusing on identifying those responsible for disseminating deepfakes of the President," Villacorta said.

Last week, an official from the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said that Marcos' deepfake video could have affected the Philippines’ foreign policy.

“It’s a big news because it’s foreign policy that’s affected there,” PCO Asec. Dale De Vera said in a mix of English and Filipino on the Bagong Pilipinas Ngayon public briefing.

PCO Assistant Secretary Patricia Kayle Martin, on the other hand, said the government is considering filing charges against those behind the manipulated footage.