The Democracy Discourse Series (DDS) project held the first public forum for its second round of implementation, entitled “Cultivating Spaces for Dialogue and Deliberation” on May 12, 2023, at the Bayleaf Hotel, Intramuros, Manila, Philippines.
he public forum introduces the new DDS Public Intellectuals from Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, working on artistic, journalistic, and community engagement projects that seek to intervene in and cultivate democratic spaces and practices in Southeast Asia. The event featured a roundtable discussion with some of the chosen fellows or public intellectuals where they talked about the challenges of being democracy advocates in their respective national contexts and their views on the prospects of cultivating dialogue and deliberation across Southeast Asia. The forum is capped by a keynote address delivered by Dr. Maria Serena I. Diokno, Professor Emeritus of History from the University of the Philippines. In her talk, “The Duality of Fact,” Diokno describes the contemporary challenges of defending truth as a vital function of democratization:
The old and, I might add, crudely simplistic binary of fact and opinion is no longer sufficient to understand reality today. Among others, this binary silences the unequal value of opinions. Even as we assert that each one has the right to an opinion—a fundamental entitlement in any democracy—not all opinions are equally credible, or uniformly sensible, or evenly substantive. Some opinions are better thought out than others and deserve to be heard, while others ought to rest more comfortably in the rubbish bin. So we need to evaluate opinions. The question is, how do we teach the ability to differentiate between opinions that are and aren’t credible? The school curriculum, for one, has to go beyond the fact-opinion dichotomy and explain how opinions are formed and how they acquire or lose credibility, processes that require self-awareness.
Maria Serena I. Diokno, The Duality of Fact as Statement and Practice
The public event is followed by a two-day closed-door workshop where all the ten public intellectuals discussed their projects ranging from highlighting youth activism during Martial Law years through creative storytelling and animation, recording feminist and LGBT activism in the Philippines through original musical compositions, implementing mental health capacity building workshops in impoverished communities in Manila, documenting Malaysian social movements through film and cultural heritage tours, conducting virtual classes on political literacy on Malaysian youth, cultivating meaningful conversations in marginalized sectors in the Philippines to produce creative political campaigns, building an FM radio station in a conflict-ridden area in Myanmar, curating and translating Thai literature, art and performances that champion democratic aspirations, producing multimedia content that explores democratic meanings across Southeast Asia, and carrying out a national survey and TikTok campaign against discrimination in Malaysia.
Political podcaster and former DDS fellow Christian Esguerra and art historian and activist Lisa Ito-Tapang served as interlocutors to the public intellectual’s presentations. The workshop has also served as a platform where the fellows can network and find ways of collaborating with each other to enrich their project design and scope.
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