Lesson 11: ICT as Platform for Change

       Throughout recent history, the Philippines has been one of a few nations that demonstrates unity for a call to action or social change. These campaigns for social change would not have been successful if it were not for ICT.

EDSA (People Power Revolution)

A video with the song "Handog ng Pilipino sa Mundo" which is one of the most iconic songs which represents the People Power Revolution.

        The People Power Revolution lasted from 1983 to 1986. During a radio broadcast of Radyo Veritas, Cardinal Sin encouraged the Filipinos to help end the regime of then President Ferdinand Marcos. A major protest took place alng EDSA from February 22 to 25,1986 involving two million Filipinos from different sectors. These included civilians, political parties, the military, and religious groups. The radio broadcast helped change the course of history. Without it, Filipinos would not have been moved into action.

EDSA Dos

A video of the news broadcast about EDSA Dos

This is also known as the 2001 EDSA Revolution, happened during January 17-21, 2001. It was fueled after 11 prosecutors of then President Joseph Estrada walked out of the impeachment trial. As a result, the crowd in EDSA grew over the course of days through text brigades. Like the first People Power Revolution, Edsa Dos would not have been successful without the text brigades.

Million People March

A video showing the gathering of the people in Luneta Park for the Million People 

        This is a series of protests that mainly took place in Luneta Park from August 22 to 26, 2013. There were also several demonstrations that happened around key cities in the Philippines and some locations overseas. It was to condemn the misuse of the Priority Development Assistance fund. Though dubbed as the Million People March, the number of total attendees was only around 400,000. Despite that, it was still considered a success and clearly demonstrated how powerful social media campaigns are. The organizers and promoters of the Million People March used Facebook and Change.org as their mediums.

Yolanda People Finder

A video which shows how destructive Bagyong Yolanda was.

       Recent storms in Philippine history gave birth to the People finder database powered by Google. During Typhoon Yolanda, the People Finder was a vital tool for people across the globe to track the situation of their relatives. This proved to be successful and is now adapted by more organizations to help people track relatives during calamities.

Now that we know how ICT has affected different events in our country, let us now talk about a way on how you can start a change in your community through ICT: Change.org

Change.org is dubbed as the world's platform for change where anyone from the online community can create a petition and ask others to sign it. Change.org's mission is to help people from around the world create the change they want to see.