31 October 2022 — The UP Manila College of Arts and Sciences (CAS) BA Social Sciences – Area Studies Program held the 12th Dr. Grace Estela C. Mateo Commemorative Lecture entitled “Disinformation and the Nation” on September 28, 2022.
Dr. Grace Estela Mateo is CAS’ former associate dean for academic affairs, professor, researcher, and historian. She died at age 45 on September 21, 2010 while battling a disease.
Wensley Reyes, professor from the Department of Social Sciences said that the evolution and presence of disinformation in our everyday life have become both an “academic inquiry and social anomie” which is why it is important for academic institutions to help address it.
Renee Karunungan Edwards from Loughborough University, also an alumnus of BA Communication Arts in UP Diliman, led the first panel discussion. Using her expertise in political communication, she shared how populist movements on a global and local scale were able to weaponize the Internet for their agenda, and how social media algorithms and postmodern views helped in the successful spread of disinformation across countries.
Dissecting the role of fan cams during the election and post-election of Pres. Bong Bong Marcos Jr., Lian Buan, a journalist from Rappler Philippines retold their experiences as media persons during the May 2022 election until the present. Buan shared the pressing bias against online vloggers over journalists in the present-day Marcos regime. According to her, journalists were red-tagged and terror-tagged while vloggers were treated with convenience and priority. This strategy, Buan reiterated, defuses the credibility of formal dissemination of information, and therefore, glaringly perpetuates the issue of disinformation in our society.
“Cyberspace has been a platform for oppression and conflict,” CAS Asst. Prof. Carl Ramota stressed as he followed Buan in the table talks. Ramota expanded how networked social movements in the Philippines used and bolstered networked disinformation to push for their own political agenda. In turn, the majority of the society, victimized by widespread disinformation, supported recent laws and policies that are skewed towards unjust and inhumane views.
Ramota encouraged the virtual audience to continue voicing out the junking of these policies, “challenge legal agencies about societal atrocities”, push for accessible data and tighter data security, provide legal aid if possible, and fight the perpetuating inhumane narratives within the society.
“If Ma’am Grace is still alive, she will be a great critic of disinformation in the Philippines today”, Dr. Mary Dorothy DL Jose, current CAS associate dean for academic affairs said.
Civil Service Field Director Jacinto C. Mateo III, brother of Dr. Estela Mateo, also delivered a speech during the program. He recalled the life her sister had lived and thanked the CAS for its continued holding of the commemorative event for her.
Francis Nicole G. Maga | Published in UP Manila Healthscape Issue No. 44 (October 2022)
