CHANGE: Utilizing Social Media for Social Change

#CHANGE

Why Social Change?

PHIlippines

severe inequality

• Annual income of 25 richest Filipinos ($21.4B)  
• Equivalent to income of 55.4M poorest Filipinos
• Almost 70% of Filipinos (65M) living in
• 23M Filipinos living in
• Daily minimum wage in NCR is P429/day

Massive unemployment

• 12% unemployment rate since 2000 (almost 5.3M)
• 16.7M of employed working below minimum wage
• 43% of unemployed possess a college degree
• Employed define as "working at least once in 3 months"
• Almost 2.5M OFWs working outside PH

elite & Corrupt government

• 67% of Congress (Senate&HOR) came from the same families
• Kabarilan, ka-klase, kamag-anak INC in the Aquino cabinet
• 93% of Congress members (Senate&HOR) are millionaires
• Presidential, congressional pork barrel in disguise
• 82% of top gov't officials have ties with the private sector

Landless majority

• 7 out of 10 peasants are landless
• Flawed agrarian reform govt programs (CARP,CARPER)
• P9/day wage for farmworkers in Hacienda Luisita
• Growing number of urban poor Filipinos (23%)
• Massacre, enforced disapperances, killings

uneducated, ignored youth

• 80% of HS graduates do not make it to college
• 40% of college freshies do not make it to second year
• 70% (7.93M) cannot go to college because of high cost
• Average tuition for 2011 (P17,588); for 2012 (P21,266)
• Govt subsidy to SUCs down from 87% ('00) to 65% ('12) 

Anti-people govt policies

• Endless hikes (goods, fare, electricity, water, services)
• State abandonment of social services (health, education, housing)
• Profit and corruption (PPP, pork barrel)
• Dole-outs (4Ps, CCT, PAMANA)
• Repression and fascism (killings, disappearances, political prisoners)

growing unrest

progressive youth: Hope of the future

• Jose Rizal wrote Noli Me Tangere at 25
• Gregorio del Pilar was 21 when he joined the revolution
• Emilio Jacinto became "utak ng Katipunan" at 20
• Andres Bonifacio founded Katipunan at 23
• Youth-led uprising: martial law, oust Erap, oust GMA

WHY social media?

PH Youth: Plugged & Connected

• 34M (almost 1/3 of population) Filipino internet users
• 106.4M Filipino mobile subscribers
• Penetration: mobile (94%), internet (35%)
• Mode of access: home (23%), cafe (67%)
• Average time of being online per month is 20 hours

Social media capital of the world

• Internet users in the PH view social network sites 15B times/month
• Internet users in the PH are primarily in the social media (86%)
• 28.3M Facebook users, 3rd in the world to India, Indonesia
• Average age of PH internet user is 20 with social media as primary use
• Television-cellphone-laptop/tablet media

PH social media use

• 51% are active Youtube users
• 93% are Facebook users
• 33% are Twitter users
• 13.8% are "bloggers"

internet is free?

revolutionizing social media

• Transforming the selfie generation
• #AbolishPork
• Viral memes, videos
• Alternative press, blogging
• From online to offline

How to utilize social media

• Arouse 
• Organize
• Mobilize
• Framing

successful online campaigns

• #MillionPeopleMarch, #AbolishPork
• Noynoying
• Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street
• Yolanda

Some strategies for online campaigns

• Blog Action Day
• Changing profile pictures
• Same status, tweets
• Many, many, many more

challenges

• Cyber-utopianism
• Internet-centrism
• Clicktivism
• State repression (surveillance, Cybercrime law)

system error. Restart. #CHANGE

Cleve arguelles (@clevearguelles)

Untitled Slide

• clevearguelles.wordpress.com
• Blue Jeans kolum, pinoyweekly.org
• Philippine Online Chronicles Youth, thepoc.net
• Student Power column, bulatlat.com

#CHANGE