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Philippines report

First Wikipedian in Residence in the Philippines

By Eugene Alvin Villar (seav)
Books and other research materials available at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani.

The Bantayog ng mga Bayani ("Monument to Heroes"), a Philippine foundation that maintains a museum and library dedicated to the heroes and victims of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, has hired Red de Leon (User:Alternativity) as its first Wikipedian in Residence. This residency, which will last for three months from April to June 2018, is also the first in the Philippines and Southeast Asia.

As a Wikipedian in Residence, Red will be working with a small team to help the digitize portions of Bantayog's library as well as to improve coverage of topics related to the Marcos regime in Wikipedia and its sister projects. He will also serve as a liaison between Bantayog and the Wikimedia community by organizing events and workshops, and plan to help the Filipino Wikimedia community grow by sharing his skills as a Wikipedian to Bantayog’s constituency of museum visitors, library researchers, and supporters. The Wiki Society of the Philippines, formerly known as Wikimedia Philippines, will also be involved in a supporting and advisory capacity especially when the Resident will be organizing events and workshops.

Red, a writer and an amateur historian, has been editing Wikipedia for more than a decade. Prior to his residency, Red had been improving Wikipedia's coverage of pre-colonial history of the Philippines. Red graduated with a bachelor's degree in Development Communication from the University of the Philippines Los Baños and has taught journalism and technical writing during his stint as a professor at his alma mater.

"Museums and Libraries are our last line of defense in a post-truth world," muses Red on his being hired as a Wikipedian in Residence at the Bantayog. "These are places where facts get transformed from abstractions in an individual's mind, and get turned into tangible experiences we can share objectively with other people. People can visit them together and come to an agreement that 'Hey, this really happened. This is not fake news. This was real.'"

The project page on the Outreach Wiki will contain more information about the Residency and its output: https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedian_in_Residence_at_Bantayog_ng_mga_Bayani


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