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How can ordinary citizens take part in ensuring their localities are well informed on issues on the upcoming 2025 Philippine elections? With the rapid spread of disinformation and misuse of generative AI, easy access to facts is needed more than ever. This is objective requires everyone’s participation in order to ensure that facts will thrive in the upcoming elections. In line with this, Rappler through its civic engagement arm MovePH launches a series of roadshows in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao aimed at engaging communities in promoting information integrity and voter empowerment in their localities. The roadshow also aims to gather and train future Movers, Rappler civic engagement volunteers, to write community-driven election stories that will be amplified by Rappler.
Anchored on Rappler’s call to action for the upcoming elections, the roadshow series is themed “#AmbagNatin: Championing facts for an informed choice". The series will have three stops — Iloilo City, Lipa City, and Iligan City — where public forums and hands-on workshops will be conducted with a focus on the 2025 national and local mid-term elections, voter empowerment, and civic engagement. The #AmbagNatin roadshow series will start in Iloilo City with various events lined up on November 19-20, 2024 in partnership with anti-disinformation coalition #FactsFirstPH, University of the Philippines Visayas, Daily Guardian, iWrite, and Vital Signs. It will then take place in Lipa City, Batangas on November 28-29, 2024 in partnership with #FactsFirstPH and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) CALABARZON through its Local Governance Resource System.
The roadshows will feature a public forum on the importance of verified information and a vibrant information landscape, especially during the elections. During the public forum, participants will hear from Rappler journalists and local newsrooms about how information integrity can affect election outcomes. There will be a panel discussion about ways to work together to ensure voters are protected from AI-powered disinformation. During the forum, participants will also get to interact with Rai, Rappler’s chat bot designed to relay, in conversational format, information vetted by journalists. The public forum will be held on November 19, 2024 at the UP Visayas Little Theater for the Iloilo City leg and on November 28, 2024 for the Lipa City leg from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm. Slots for the public forum are free but seats are limited. All attendees will also be asked to download the Rappler Communities app, a news and community-building app that uses generative AI for journalism and civic engagement. Interested participants who wish to take part in the forum may register online through this link for the Iloilo leg on or before November 17, 2024 and this link for the Batangas leg on or before November 26, 2024 at 8:00 pm.
Aside from the public forum, the #AmbagNatin roadshow will offer exclusive training on journalism for community-building through a series of hands-on interactive workshops for interested Movers or volunteers for Rappler. These workshops will engage 20 local community leaders, journalists, and youth in a community dialogue on local issues, and interactive learning sessions and activities. Specifically, these will run on November 19, 2024 from 1:00 to 5:00 pm and November 20, 2024 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm for the Iloilo City leg and on November 28, 2024 from 1:00 to 5:00 pm and November 29, 2024 from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm for the Lipa City leg. During these sessions, participants will learn more about fact-checking, reporting on local issues, creating effective multimedia content, and utilizing social media for civic engagement. As part of the selection process for these workshops, interested participants must pitch an election-related story from their locality and commit to cover community issues during election season for Rappler. Following the training, participants are expected to pursue stories based on their pitches with support from Rappler. A total of 20 local community leaders, journalists, and youth will be selected in these two legs. The criteria are as follows:
• At least 18 years old and based in Iloilo province (for the Iloilo City leg) and Batangas province (for the Lipa City leg)
• Good writing and communication skills
• Basic knowledge of short video production preferred
• Journalism or video production experience a plus
• Interested in doing community-driven journalism
• Must have a solid pitch of an election-related story from their locality (can be text story or multimedia execution). The story pitches can cover any of these: profiles of local candidates running in their city/province, stories about community issues that local candidates must address in their platforms, comparisons of platforms of key candidates in their area, among others.
• Must be willing to help Rappler cover community stories during election season. These community stories can be similar to the ones indicated above.
• Must also attend the public forum conducted during the morning session on November 19, 2024 (for the Iloilo Ciry leg) and on November 28, 2024 (for the Lipa City leg)
Food and snacks will be provided to those selected for the workshop. Those who are interested in joining these workshops and aspired to become a Mover can submit their application through this link for the Iloilo City leg and this link for the Lipa City leg. Deadline for workshop application is on November 14, 2024 at 11:59 pm for the Iloilo City leg and on November 23, 2024 at 11:59 pm for the Lipa City leg. Those applying for the workshop should also answer the form for the public forum. All applicants will be screened by Rappler and eventually be notified about the status of their applications by November 18, 2024 for the Iloilo City leg and by November 27, 2024 for the Lipa City leg. For any questions or concerns regarding Rappler's #AmbagNatin roadshow series, contact the organization via e-mail at move.ph@rappler.com.
