Re-creating communication

ALLOWme to share the message of President Rodrigo Roa Duterte for the delegates of the on-going National Information Convention 2018 in Davao City as delivered by PCOO Secretary Martin Andanar:

"We stand on the threshold of a new platform in communication, based on the speed and sophistication of technologically advanced instruments that have simplified the relay of information to the farthest reaches of our world. Instant data can now be acquired with the click of fingers on the computer and person to person contact is an audio-visual image in real time. The vast expanse of assorted information can be read on mobile phones to which a large number of our people are attached and seemingly addicted to.

But the ultimate questions to be asked are: what do we get out of the contents in the internet? Are they fact-based on good reasoning? Do they have the capacity to affect our thinking correctly? Is there some relevance to the way we can, individually and collectively, improve our lives, restore a sense of compassion and concern, do justice where it is rightfully due, and most importantly, safeguard the future?

Indeed, these questions best summarize the concerns that are intended to be answered in the discussions during the convention.

Our Presidential Communications Office banners a vision and corresponding mission to nurture an enlightened citizenry and set the narrative for the discussions on government policies, programs and activities. Alongside this objective is the reminder to all government officers and other communicators to utilize multi-modal approach in public information with emphasis, as always, to bring government to the people at the closest and most effective level of understanding, acceptance, and appreciation.

Briefly, this means that in sharing the truth with our people through the most powerful force of electronic media such as on print in broadsheets, Facebook posts, blogs, twitter and live-streaming, on the airwaves of radio and even, with thirty seconds spots on television other than the regular news reports and public affairs programs. This is how we are raising the bar of democratic governance for the people, by the people and of the people. With these modems, we are actually developing a dynamic grass-roots strategy that corresponds to promoting a responsible digital citizenry. This is the current framework of the government broadcasting future that is being presented before you today and forthwith. This is where all of you, as communication officers of our government, are expected to stand. You are likewise expected to sustain this platform as it continues to unfold for the future that we have already started. How did we get there? As your President, I have spoken the words of change: a radical transformation in the way the destructive elements of the past must be eradicated. I therefore, early on, declared the wars against illegal drugs, against crime, against corruption, against terrorism. The battle zones surround all of us and, as the communication and information officers of the government, you are bound to fight these wars as a matter of duty and for the honor of being the public servants of our people.

Words are the most effective instruments we can use to confront the fractured world we inherited. There are truths and certainties we must speak of in order to elicit respect