No free electricity program starting December

There are no official reports that electricity will be free for customers paying ₱20,000 electric bills or below starting December 2025. 

Facebook page Pinoy Newswire, however, posted an AI-generated video on Nov. 27 at 9:23 p.m. of a synthetic female reporter claiming so:

Libre na ang singil sa kuryente. Mga nagbabayad ng 20,000 pababa libre na ang kuryente niyo simula December. Mga lugar na kasama sa libreng kuryente makikita sa listahan sa post namin at comments section makikita. Mag-share at follow para kasama ka. (Electricity charges are now free. Those who pay ₱20,000 or below will have free electricity starting this December. The areas included to those with free electricity can be found in the list in our post and in the comments section. Share and follow so you can be included).

No such program is offered by any energy agency or major distribution utilities. Instead, Energy Regulatory Commission chairperson and CEO Francis Juan discussed in a recent video a proposed uniform national lifeline subsidy rate program that will give a 100% discount to customers covered by the lifeline program whose monthly consumption does not exceed 50 kwh.

The agency also released an advisory on Nov. 10 that suspends electricity line disconnections for nonpayment of electricity bills from Nov. 4 to Dec. 31 for typhoon-hit areas across the country. 

ERC advised distribution utilities to provide "flexible payment options to help ease the financial burden on its consumers as they recover from the impacts of Typhoon Tino and Typhoon Uwan.”

AI detection tools WasItAI and Hive both showed high confidence scores, with an aggregate score of 100% that the 14-second clip packaged to look like a legitimate news program, “Tagalog News Channel,” was generated by artificial intelligence.

The caption of the Nov. 27 post contained links supposedly redirecting viewers to a list of areas covered by the free electricity but, upon clicking, lead to an online shopping website, a typical tactic used by sham pages to boost their reach.

Several viewers were misled by the false information and asked to be included in the nonexistent scheme. One wrote:

good day maam sana Po Kasama kami Dito sa uppernorthern Hills brgy malhacan meycauayan Bulacan(.) sextawsan ang amin binabayara bowan bowan salamat po  (Good day, ma’am. We hope we can be included here in Upper Northern Hills, Brgy. Malhacan, Meycauayan, Bulacan. We pay ₱6,000 pesos monthly. Thank you).

Another said:

Good morning maam sana po makasama po ako sa libreng kuryente senior na po ako 4 to 5 thousand po ang binabayaran ko (Good morning, ma’am. I hope I can be included in the free electricity program. I’m a senior citizen and I pay around ₱4,000 to ₱5,000).”

As of writing, the post has garnered around 822,000 views, 10,900 reactions, 2,000 comments and 4,200 shares. 

Pinoy Newswire, the uploader, was created last Oct. 8 and has 752,000 followers. 

The page has been uploading fake claims from AI-generated photos and videos such as nonexistent government cash assistance with links redirecting to unrelated online shopping platforms that mimic government websites.

The page’s claims have been debunked by legitimate fact-checking organizations such as Rappler. (SAA)