Twenty-two years ago EDSA Dos or the second people power uprising toppled Philippine President Joseph Estrada over allegations of corruption, with a 13-0 Supreme Court decision supporting the Vice President’s takeover. He would later become a convicted plunderer and get a life sentence, but then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo pardoned him. Estrada’s exiting Malacanang, the seat of power, revealed the importance of information and communications technology (ICT) as cellphone text messaging or SMS kept people abreast of the four-day uprising, with protests being smoothly coordinated.
A mere “coup de text” like that can hardly be effective these days. In fact, it was as early as the Arab Spring or that series of pro-democracy revolts in Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt, and Bahrain largely beginning in 2011 or ten years after EDSA Dos. The ICT-in-action during the time was activism on Word Wide Web with extensive use of the relatively new digital social media.
It is good to be forward-looking insofar as the role of ICT in developing countries such as ours is concerned. Fast forward to 2023, however, have we prepared young Filipinos with the critical foundation in the art, science, and practice of social media? Do we have the moral fiber to smoothly drive communication’s future assuming we can? Advancing their ideas on it, Randy David, Ramon Guillermo, Jose Mario De Vega, and a few more professors found out that we do have it, but they also underscored the intellect in order for us to substantially change the paradigm early enough.
De Vega told his colleagues that opening open forums meant for students, teachers, and educational institutions is one small step for us not to be overstepped by our new inventions, the last being the artificial intelligence (AI) tools. Then, test the “intelligence” of AI in a very personal way like what the other two noted professors did.
De Vega (2023) correctly pointed out: “(N)o matter how great, fast, and powerful these latest apps and technologies are, as long as we use our head, maximize our reason, and think for ourselves, there is no way that machines will overwhelm or defeat us. In fact, I will reiterate: it is not us against the machine. How can a mere creature overpower its creator? Machines are not the enemy. Our opponent is the person who does not think. Our enemy is laziness, cowardice, indifference, pride, prejudice, and misplaced arrogance.”
Who wants to see another student who would go on as senate president without knowing what plagiarism is? He did plagiarize while inside the august hall of the upper chamber and did lose twice in the elections, but still had no remorse for not being a role model for would-be leaders of the nation, including the digital native students who intend to finish their courses without being hounded by academic dishonesty issues in the future.
Leaders’ lies told again and again cannot be halted. The ICT and related machinery will soon be there to protect truth-telling and facilitate the deepening of our national character as well as democracies outside of us.
DC Alviar
Professor DC Alviar serves as a member of the steering committee of the Philippine International Studies Organization (PHISO). He was part of National University’s community extension project that imparted the five disciplines of a learning organization (Senge, 1990) to communities in a local government unit. He writes and edits local reports for Mega Scene. He graduated with a master’s degree in development communication from the University of the Philippines Open University in Los Baños. He recently defended a dissertation proposal for his doctorate degree in communication at the same graduate school under a Philippine government scholarship grant. He was editor-in-chief of his high school paper Ang Ugat and the Adamson News.
