FACT CHECK: Post shows AI-generated ‘presidential survey’ results

Claim: A photo shows the latest presidential survey results conducted in Naga City, where Vice President Sara Duterte emerged as the top choice with 60% of respondents favoring her.

Rating: FALSE 

Why we fact-checked this: The post has already received 6,400 reactions, 743 comments, and 456 shares as of writing. It was posted on February 15, days before Duterte officially announced her presidential bid in the 2028 elections. 

The post shows alleged presidential survey results where Duterte topped the list, garnering 60% preference rating, followed by Naga City Mayor Leni Robredo with an undisclosed rating. The image also shows a bar graph for an unnamed candidate who supposedly got 10%, and another bar showing 15% undecided. 

The post has no label indicating that the photo was generated using artificial intelligence (AI). While some social media users celebrated Duterte’s supposed achievement in the survey, most of the comments raised concern about the inauthenticity of the post, highlighting how it can affect the perceptions of online audiences. 

One Facebook user wrote, “Grabe mind conditioning neto oh (This mind conditioning is terrible),” with a laughing emoticon. 

The facts: The photo is AI-generated. Decopy AI detected 100% generative AI probability from the image. AI image detector tool Sight Engine also flagged the photo as 94% likely to be generated using AI, with 71% probability of the use of Nano Banana, the name for Google Gemini’s native image generation capabilities. 

The signature sparkle logo of Gemini AI can also be seen in the bottom right corner of the image. Gemini AI allows users to generate and process images conversationally with text, images, or a combination of both. 

The supposed survey result also bears notable inconsistencies. The 10% bar is higher than the 15% bar, while the bar supposedly representing votes for Robredo has no corresponding percentage. 

Presidential preferences: Previous presidential preference surveys show that Duterte and Robredo are among Filipinos’ choices for the 2028 polls. 

A survey conducted by WR Numero in November 2025 showed that Duterte is currently leading voter preferences, garnering 33.3% of respondents’ support, followed by Senator Raffy Tulfo with 13.4%, and Robredo with 13%. 

Duterte, with 25.4% voter preference, also topped the list of preferred presidential candidates in a non-commissioned opinion survey by Oculum Research and Analytics in 2024. Tulfo ranked second with 18.5%, and Robredo ranked third with 10.6%.

This was consistent with the Pulse Asia presidential survey in March 2024 and the Social Weather Stations survey in April 2023. 

Presidential bid: Duterte officially announced her presidential bid on February 18, in a speech streamed on her Facebook page. Her announcement came amid a new impeachment complaint filed against her with the House of Representatives. This is the fourth complaint filed against the Vice President.

Before her announcement, Duterte had long been hinting at her presidential run. In January 2025, Duterte said in a press conference that she was “seriously considering” running in the 2028 elections. 

In March 2025, before her father, former president Rodrigo Duterte, was arrested, the Vice President also hinted at a potential presidential candidacy during a speech at a Hong Kong event. 

Previous fact checks: Rappler has previously debunked similar claims about Duterte: 

• FACT CHECK: Marcos remains president; no transfer of power to Sara Duterte 
• FACT CHECK: VP Sara not named ‘mastermind’ in flood control corruption by Bong Revilla 
• FACT CHECK: Sara Duterte did not replace Marcos as president 
• FACT CHECK: SC ruling on impeachment did not declare Sara Duterte innocent 

– Angelee Kaye Abelinde/Rappler.com 

Angelee Kaye Abelinde is a student journalist based in Naga City, and an alumna of Rappler’s Aries Rufo Journalism Fellowship 2024. 

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