FACT CHECK | Mindanao journo Jandii Esteban’s likeness mimicked by A.I. in fake posts

DAVAO CITY – At least two posts on Facebook claiming to cure blindness have generated an artificial intelligence avatar of Davao-based reporter Jandii Esteban.

The posts are fake, and MindaNews has obtained a denial from Esteban herself. 

MindaNews is fact-checking this piece as one of the posts remains up on the social media platform.

Worse, a netizen told her that a relative bought the product because they relied on Esteban’s credibility. 

The two Facebook accounts use Esteban’s likeness and have also generated an A.I. version of popular doctor Willie Ong. 

Both posts use Esteban’s likeness to introduce, through a reporter’s stand-upper, an AI Willie Ong’s supposed cure for blindness.

One such page called Neburu uses Esteban’s AI likeness to endorse a supposed cure for eye diseases in a 2:59-minute video. 

As of June 26, 8:21 a.m., the post has gathered 376 comments and 6.6K reactions. Posts of this type typically have numerous shares, but this one has none. 

Another such profile, Esmeralda Esm, likewise uses Esteban’s likeness for an apparently similar product.  

The Esmeralda Esm post has been around since December 14, 2024 and has since gathered 2.4M views, 2.2K comments, 20K reactions so far, as of June 26, 2025. 

In an interview, Esteban has said that both posts were AI, with her lips manipulated to supposedly say a likely AI-written script. Her voice was also likewise mimicked.

The CHARGEN, or character generation for text, for news program One Mindanao was likewise changed. 

The Esmeralda Esm post was created last April 9, 2022 and continues to be up as of June 26. 

The page has at least four administrators, coming from Ukraine, Malaysia, and Poland, according to the page’s transparency tab. 

Neburu, for its part, has only 180 followers despite the numerous engagement on the fake post. 

As it turns out, the Neburu post has posted at least three ads on Facebook spaced out across May 29, June 10, and June 18, according to Neburu’s ads list Meta’s Page Transparency tab

Ads.

The amount spent for the post is unknown, as this is not tagged as a social issue (which requires advertisers to publicly identify how much they spent on each ad). 

Ong has been a victim of several fake posts that used his manipulated images to supposedly endorse eye, hypertension, cataracts, blood pressure, hair spray, and diabetes.

As with all our other reports, MindaNews welcomes fact check leads or suggestions from the public. 

MindaNews is a verified signatory to the Code of Principles of the International Fact-Checking Network. (Yas D. Ocampo / MindaNews)