NextGen Day

The government of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. will execute a Digital Media Literacy campaign this year, attempting to equip the most vulnerable populations with knowledge and tools “to be discerning of the truth,” a Presidential Communications Office (PCO) spokesman stated on Friday.

During the CyberSafe Against False News: Being Smart, Being Safe, and Staying Ahead! the conference, PCO Undersecretary Cherbett Karen Maralit released the statement. Having a Secure Internet Experience for Women and Girls is a side event to the 67th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW67) at the UN’s New York headquarters.

Maralit mentioned that the PCO has been given a mandate by Congress to address the rising concern about false and misleading information, particularly in the digital sphere.

Maralit stated, “We used the opportunity to establish methods through which we can bring the online experiences of females of all ages into focus. Supported by budgetary support from the Philippine Congress and its faith in the leadership of the PCO.

The PCO representative added that “Importantly, misinformation and disinformation continue to threaten the rights of women and girls in this age of abundant and relentless information.

Through a Digital Media Literacy Program that will target our most vulnerable populations, the PCO is positioned itself to safeguard the rights and welfare of women and girls, Maralit stated.

Maralit continued, “We plan to reach out to and empower these communities with knowledge, skills, and tools that will enable people to be discerning of the truth as they engage in various social media channels and platforms. Using a context-based and factual grassroots approach.

According to Maralit, the two-pronged approach include the PCO actively working with the private sector, especially key players in the television sector, to build efficient measures against fake news.

The PCO will also direct the general people to a position of strength where they are able to comprehend and spot erroneous, misleading, or incomplete information.

“We’ll seek to strengthen the populace’s capacity for critical thought and data analysis. Finding trustworthy and relevant sources of information is the first step in achieving this goal, according to Maralit, who added that the office “wishes to achieve this goal with both sensitivity, balance, and respect for constitutional rights.”

In order to pinpoint the communities in the Philippines where media literacy is most in need, identify the social media channels through which these communities are most vulnerable to fake news, and pinpoint the subjects and contents that this misinformation and disinformation primarily cover, a thorough study, according to Maralit, will be carried out this month.

The study aims to understand the forces that expose these communities to deceptions, the practices, and habits of the target communities that generate the potential for exposure to disinformation and misinformation, as well as the profiles of those who spread fake news.

“We will be undertaking a nationwide media literacy campaign that will focus on the areas mentioned when we have collected the results of this study, expectedly around the middle of this year,” the PCO official added.

By the end of the year, the PCO will wrap up the campaign with a Media Literacy Summit, where speakers from groups like Facebook, Google, and the Philippine Commission on Women would be invited “with the hope that they will share equal devotion to this cause,” according to Maralit.”

Legislation on media literacy has been introduced in both Houses of Congress, according to Maralit.

The measures aim to formalize the Department of Education’s initiative to make Media and Information Literacy (MIL) a fundamental subject in the current basic and secondary education curricula.

Maralit talked about the difficulties in incorporating MIL into the basic education curriculum, including the misconception that the MIL course is related to educational technology, the lack of training for MIL teachers, and the requirement for tertiary education institutions to view MIL as a core subject.

She remarked, “The PCO shall collaborate with the public [school] sector to assist address these issues. “To build the kind of Filipino society we envision, where everyone is free to reach their potential, we need the assistance of MIL professionals, specialists, and established institutions.

The Commission on Human Rights (CHR) talked about the steps it took to enable marginalized groups to distinguish between real and false information and to report any such abuses.

CHR Commissioner Fayda Dumarpa stated in her address that the organization has undertaken the Lila ang Kulay ng Boto Ko Campaign (Purple is the color of my vote), a campaign to educate people about women’s right to vote.

Additionally, CHR established an online reporting platform for gender-based violence “to provide a platform for women and girls to report and seek assistance on different forms of violence either committed offline or in online spaces, including those arising from disinformation and misinformation,” according to the organization.

In order to truly leave no one behind, Dumarpa said, “the Philippine Commission on Human Rights hopes that through these examples we are able to highlight how important it is that we directly consult, engage, and actively seek the critical and meaningful participation of the most vulnerable sectors of our society, such as women and girls in vulnerable situations with special needs.

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