With Valentine’s Day just days away, Filipinos are being cautioned against love scams which have recently turn into more believable and complicated through the usage of Artificial Intelligence (AI), in keeping with the Cybercrime Investigation and Coordinating Center (CICC) on Monday.
“Use your brain, not only your heart, because today, your soulmate might actually be a ‘scam-mate’ hiding behind a complicated algorithm—the script of deception,” Renato “Aboy” A. Paraiso, CICC’s acting executive director, said throughout the press conference for the agency’s Anti-Love Scam campaign.
“They use AI [and] they follow a script more polished than a teleserye (television series). They construct a fake relationship for weeks to realize your trust,” Mr. Paraiso said.
The CICC noted that scammers are leveraging AI in various ways, comparable to creating accounts with AI-generated photos and identities.
Perpetrators can come from anywhere, even offshore, as AI is already getting used to craft scripts and automate conversations in lots of languages.
The agency also reported more sophisticated incidents where scammers use AI in video calls to change their appearance, making scams more believable.
Jocel de Guzman, co-founder of Scam Watch Pilipinas, CICC’s partner for this yr’s campaign, said monitoring love scams is critical as they function entry points for investment fraud, comparable to cryptocurrency, fake gold, and foreign exchange schemes.
2025 LOVE SCAM REPORT
In CICC’s 2025 love scam report, the agency said that a complete of 123 complaints were recorded, with scammers victimizing probably the most throughout the month of January, ahead of “love month,” in addition to throughout the “wedding month” of June.
More females were victimized in keeping with the report, with 63 incidents recorded in comparison with 56 amongst males, while 4 incidents remain undisclosed.
Most victims are aged between 18 and 29, indicating that love scams also can victimize younger and tech-savvy individuals, the CICC said. Other affected age groups include those between 30 and 39 years old (38 complaints) and 40 to 49 years old (18 complaints).
The National Capital Region (NCR) comprises the best variety of love scam cases at 50.7%, while Region IV-A makes up 23.9%, and overseas cases tally 25.4% of the general total.
The CICC also reported the social media applications most utilized by scammers: Telegram tops the list (31.7%), followed by WhatsApp (25.7%), Instagram (15.8%), Facebook and Tinder (11.9% each), and Litmatch (3%).
Mr. Paraiso noted that if an individual you may have only been talking to for 2 days on social media insists on moving to a non-public messaging app, it needs to be considered a “red flag.”
Meanwhile, a complete of greater than P20 million in lost funds was reported recovered from love scams in the identical yr because of the efforts of the CICC.
“AI, AI-AI FEB-IBIG” CAMPAIGN
To fight against love scams, the CICC also launched its 2026 Anti-Love Scam campaign throughout the forum with the theme “AI, AI-AI FEB-IBIG,” a pun on a famous Filipino song.
“This campaign is our way of fighting back. We’re using education, humor, and digital literacy to remind every Filipino: mag-i-ingat sa AI na pag-ibig (watch out of AI love),” Mr. Paraiso said.
The CICC has launched several videos for the campaign on its social media platforms, together with a dance challenge and a TikTok filter.
The agency continues to encourage victims, and even those that have simply experienced love scam attempts and other cybercrimes, to call the CICC’s hotline at 1326. — Edg Adrian A. Eva