In the second year of MAKI+Fiesta, leaders and innovators from various media organizations, local governments, the academe, and civil society called on young journalists and creatives to harness the power of storytelling to combat disinformation and polarization, especially amid global shifts in technology and growing challenges to free expression and democracy.
“We believe that free expression can and will continue to change the world,” University of the Philippines President Angelo Jimenez declared as he opened the two-day media festival Dec. 11 at the Ignacio B. Gimenez-Kolehiyo ng Arte at Literatura Theater, UP Diliman.
“An idea cannot inspire, cannot incite, cannot move people to act unless it resonates in our feelings, and if you want to make societal changes, it must be shared. That is what we are doing today, and the most compelling way of doing that is to tell your story,” Jimenez said.
Sessions tackled the effects of artificial intelligence in different communities and areas of governance, issues on access to information and amplifying marginalized voices, gender biases in content and platforms, strategies in fighting disinformation, art as a vehicle for justice, and archiving and digitization to preserve historical memory, among others.
A live podcast on transparency, accountability, and creative governance with the Mayors for Good Governance headlined the first day of the festival. Fr. Flaviano Villanueva, human rights advocate and 2025 Ramon Magsaysay Award recipient, opened the festival’s second day with a keynote message. A plenary session with the Atin Ito Coalition capped this year’s festival.
While Jimenez emphasized the importance of storytelling as a craft that can shape national and even global narratives, he added that threats such as data fabrication and historical revisionism exist. These are serious considerations in protecting free expression — a sentiment shared by Quezon City Mayor Maria Josefina Belmonte.
“How can we defend free expression when expression itself can be manufactured? How can we have democratic discourse when many of us refuse to agree on the basic facts? How do we act on the present when the present itself is constantly distorted?” Belmonte asked.
Highlighting the urgency of the festival’s conversations on free expression, democracy, and truth, the Quezon City mayor warned against the cynicism and detachment caused by “passive hope” as she urged the festival’s participants to act and take initiative in bridging division. “As we open this year’s MAKI+Fiesta, we celebrate the shared determination to remain wholly in the present … We celebrate every citizen who refuses to get stopped at hope. In doing so, we resist the forces that want us silent, confused, and divided.”
Similarly, Jimenez expressed optimism that “as long as there are committed and uncompromising storytellers like you working with different media and platforms, the story of the Filipino people will be told as it must be told, to stir hearts and souls and to move them.”
MAKI+Fiesta, a media festival celebrating free expression, democracy and the creative economy was convened by the Quezon City government in partnership with UP and media organizations PumaPodcast, Probe Productions, and FYT Media.