ICT as Platform for Change.

Have you ever thought about how did ICT serve as a bridge for change? Throughout recent history, there were already multiple cases and scenarios where ICT was responsible for spreading information in a short time, because otherwise, people wouldn't be as quickly informed as now, especially when you don't go outside or interact with people too often.

ICT has helped improved communication when Filipinos needed it the most. Radyo Veritas helped in the success of the PPR. Text brigades helped in the success in EDSA Dos. Social media sites like Facebook helped in the success of the MPR. Finally, technologies like the People finder helped bring comfort to families looking for their loved ones during calamities like Yolanda.

The Role of ICT in Recent History

The Philippines has been one of a few nations that demonstrates unity for a call to action or social change. These campaigns would have no been successful if it were not for ICT. Here are a few of those campaigns back then.

1. EDSA (People Power Revolution) - The PPR lasted from 1983 to 1986. During a radio broadcast of Radyo Veritas, Cardinal Sin encourages the Filipinos to help end the regime of then President Ferdinand Marcos. The radio broadcast helped change the course of history. Without it, Filipinos would not have been moved into action.

2. EDSA Dos - This was also known as the 2001 EDSA Revolution, happened during January 17 to 21, 2001. It was fueled after 11 prosecutors of the President Joseph Estrada walked out of the impeachment trial.As a result, the crowd in EDSA grew over the course of a few days through text brigades. If not for the text brigades, EDSA Dos wouldn't have been successful.

3. Million People March - 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 it was dubbed as the MPM only 400,000 people was able to attend. The organizers and promoters of the Million People March used Facebook and Change.org as their mediums.

4. Yolanda People Finder - 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 acreoss 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.

With that said, ICT has helped improved communication when Filipinos needed it the most. Radyo Veritas helped in the success of the PPR. Text brigades helped in the success in EDSA Dos. Social media sites like Change.org is an online petition plaform that allows the online community to create or sign a petition.
Facebook helped in the success of the MPR. Finally, technologies like the Google People finder helped bring comfort to families looking for their loved ones during calamities like Yolanda.