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Miriam to students: More to activism than Facebook and Twitter
By AMITA O. LEGASPI, GMA News
Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago on Friday urged the youth to go beyond the social media if they wanted to make a meaningful change in society.
In her speech before students of Ateneo de Manila University, the senator urged the students to participate in protest events and direct actions, whether violent or non-violent; advocacy campaigns to change the policies and behavior of institutions including the national government and transnational corporations; consumer boycotts and other uses of market power to effect change; and information gathering and information to attract media attention and raise public consciousness.
“Remember, Twitter and Facebook have uses but they are not substitutes for organization and discipline in campus politics,” she said.
Santiago said technology is “a neutral variable and has its strengths and weaknesses. Twitter and Facebook are effective only to a certain degree.”
In her speech before students of Ateneo de Manila University, the senator urged the students to participate in protest events and direct actions, whether violent or non-violent; advocacy campaigns to change the policies and behavior of institutions including the national government and transnational corporations; consumer boycotts and other uses of market power to effect change; and information gathering and information to attract media attention and raise public consciousness.
Santiago said that one drawback of “new media activism” was what she called its weakness in long-term strategic thinking, collective organization, and issue-specific sustained advocacy, even though it could be strong on rapid mobilization.
“It (new media) has often failed to produce results. What has the ‘Million People March’ in Luneta achieved with respect to government reforms. The mere unfolding of the diorama of political plunder in very high places is an open invitation for Partido Crusada (a student political party in Ateneo) and its supporters to take action by organizing around a definite set of values with concrete policy proposals,” Santiago said
“Remember, Twitter and Facebook have uses but they are not substitutes for organization and discipline in campus politics,” she said.
Santiago said technology is “a neutral variable and has its strengths and weaknesses. Twitter and Facebook are effective only to a certain degree.”
She said many technological filters and firewalls have been created in sophisticated countries such as China, Russia, and Iran and the Facebook and Twitter accounts of protesters have been infiltrated by pro-government spies and hackers.
“Politicians in power, notably in the Philippines, set up a myriad of fictitious accounts so they can manipulate campaigns of disinformation,” Santiago said.
The senator said that if she will be able to rid herself of lung cancer, in 2016 “I intend to claim the presidency I won in 1992, so that I can impose in Philippine politics what we need so badly: internal discipline, a defined vision and policy agenda; internal exercise of democracy; and a mass, cross-sectoral base.”
Santiago placed second to former President Fidel Ramos in the 1992 elections.
Santiago said that if she would be elected president, she would appoint a Cabinet, half of whom would be from the youth sector and half from the ranks of senior citizens. She said young people “represent nothing less than a force for transformative social change.” —NB, GMA News
Tags: miriamdefensorsantiago
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