Manipulated footage misrepresents Philippine Senate probe on ghost government projects

Published on October 28, 2025 at 08:28
2 min read
By Jan Cuyco, Lucille SODIPE, AFP Philippines

Philippine lawmakers and former officials have become embroiled in a ballooning graft scandal involving bogus flood control projects, but social media users claiming an informant's testimony is "scripted" have shared a manipulated video. The footage of the Justice Department chief passing along the affidavit has been played in reverse to appear as if he slipped the whistleblower a different statement.

"Take note of the folder in front of Henry Alcantara. He opened it because he was about to read from it, then Boying handed him a script," says the Tagalog-language narration in this TikTok clip shared on September 24.

Department of Public Works and Highway engineer Alcantara was removed from his post after being implicated in a growing corruption scandal where lawmakers, contractors and public works officers have been accused of pocketing billions in money allocated for flood mitigation "ghost projects" (archived link).

He has since turned whistleblower for the government and further named several lawmakers in the controversy (archived link).

The clip shows Alcantara next to former Justice Department chief Crispin Remulla, who is nicknamed Boying. On October 7, President Ferdinand Marcos appointed Remulla as the Ombudsman (archived link).

Based on news reports, Alcantara went before the Office of the Ombudsman on October 24 as part of the anti-graft body's fact-finding investigation into flood control projects (archived link).

Screenshot of the altered clip taken on September 27, 2025, with the orange X mark added by AFP

In the video, Remulla appears to slip Alcantara a sheaf of papers as he is about to read from a different document beneath.

The voiceover suggests the whistleblower was "in a bind" about whether to "confess the truth of what he knows" or read from the purported script.

Marcos first put the ghost projects in the spotlight during a July state of the nation address that followed weeks of deadly flooding, but supporters of his ally-turned-rival Sara Duterte believe the president is attempting to protect officials close to him who are involved in the graft scandal.

The same clip also appeared across YouTube and Facebook, raking in over two million views.

Comments on the post indicate some users were misled.

"Let's share this. This is evidence," one user commented.

"Good catch," another wrote.

However, the clip has been manipulated to play in reverse.

Manipulated clip

Google reverse image searches led to a Facebook video published by Philippine media outlet Rappler on September 23, 2025 (archived link).

The caption states that Alcantara signed his affidavit at a Senate hearing, while Remulla's request to bring the ex-government engineer to the Department of Justice to further study his statement is granted.

The original footage published by Rappler shows Boying speaking, before collecting Alcantara's statement and handing it to someone offscreen.

The manipulated footage shows this sequence in reverse, before it is spliced with the Rappler video again, this time in the correct order.

A closer look at the manipulated version also shows the cameraman in the background walking away backwards after inspecting his tripod setup.

A YouTube livestream of the Senate hearing on September 23 also shows Remulla handing over Alcantara's signed statement to a colleague. At no point is he seen sliding documents to Alcantara (archived link).

Misinformation over the flood control scandal has circulated on social media, some of which AFP debunked here.

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