Roque tagged in BBM fake video

Roque tagged in BBM fake video | Daily Tribune

The infamous “polvoron video” — a digitally manipulated clip falsely depicting President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. snorting cocaine — was not only fake but part of a calculated plan to discredit and destabilize the administration, a House inquiry revealed Tuesday.

In a hearing led by Rep. Romeo Acop, social media personality Vincent Cunanan, more widely known online as “Pebbles,” testified that former presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was one of the orchestrators of the dissemination of the deepfake video.

Cunanan detailed a private dinner discussion after a Hakbang ng Maisug rally in Hong Kong where Roque reportedly floated the idea of releasing a fabricated photo of the President.

“When I arrived at the restaurant, that [the photo] was the topic,” Cunanan said.

Eventually what was released by US-based vlogger Maharlika was a video clip showing a man resembling Marcos taking a hit of cocaine up his nose and tilting his head back.

The manipulated clip was released during a Maisug event in Los Angeles, California on 22 July 2024 — the same day President Marcos delivered his third State of the Nation Address.

The Philippine National Police and independent fact-checking organizations have since confirmed the video was AI-generated and digitally enhanced to make the man look like the President.

In a Facebook livestream late Tuesday, Atty. Harry Roque and US-based vlogger Maharlika reacted against Cunanan’s testimony, branding the allegations as absurd.

In his affidavit, Cunanan said Roque boasted at the dinner: “They made a mistake. I’m good at bringing down governments.”

Cunanan said the discussion at the dinner centered on how the cocaine-snorting image should be released — whether through a foreign influencer or journalist to give it “international credibility.”

“They were giving opinions that it might be better to have the video released by an international blogger, or even the Australian reporter who had interviewed the President. But nothing was agreed upon,” Cunanan recalled.

He clarified that no actual image was shown during the dinner, but Roque led the conversation and implied that he had damning material against the President.

When asked if the release of the video was part of a broader plan to overthrow the government, Cunanan responded, “Yes, I think that was their plan.”

Maharlika’s deepfake?

The testimony also revealed how Maharlika, who released the first version of the deepfake video, had prior knowledge of its contents, messaging Cunanan days before the video’s release and describing the President’s outfit in the clip. “She told me he was wearing green and asked me to go along with it,” he said.

A higher-quality version of the video was later uploaded on 25 August 2024. Cunanan said he did not attend the Vancouver, Canada rally but watched the events unfold live on Facebook, confirming Roque’s presence onstage.

The enhanced video was made from a lower-quality original that was, according to Cunanan, “clearly not the President.”

He said: “If you looked closely at the person in the video, it didn’t even resemble BBM. I’ve known him for a long time.”

Pressed further, Cunanan asserted, “It was clearly made — they released a blurred raw video to make it look more like BBM, then enhanced it to make it more believable, then used AI.”

Asked whom he believed was behind the creation of the deepfake video, Cunanan said: “Not just Atty. Harry Roque. I don’t know who else — but definitely not just him.”