TEDxDiliman: Seize the future

MANILA, Philippines – “The Future. Here. Now. Seize it.” This was the theme of this year’s TEDxDiliman, held at the Malcolm Theater in the University of the Philippines Diliman, the second to be organized by the Center for Art, New Ventures and Sustainable Development (Canvas), a nonprofit organization dedicated to sparking interest in Philippine art, culture and the environment.

The event saw speakers drawn from diverse backgrounds and different walks of life to talk about their own take on our collective future.

Benjamin de la Peña of the Rockefeller Foundation began the session by delving into the very heart of modernity, the icon of the future – the city. De la Peña described the city as the engine of every innovation, a complex and dynamic system.

In Steve Jurvetson’s words, “Cities are where ideas have sex.” They are home to enormous diversity. De la Peña noted that “the situation in Metro Manila is not unique to us.” Our problems are those of Tokyo, Bangkok, Jakarta and Rio de Janeiro.

Cities are centers of innovation and reinvention, destinations flocked to enabling people to establish and reestablish their own identities. But most of all, cities are people.

Citizens are the life and blood of any urban world and are thus central to understanding any challenges the future holds for the world’s megacities. “Take care of the pedestrians and the city will do well,” De la Peña said.

Human rights

Lawyer Ted Te spoke of the future of human rights law, of the impact emerging technologies would have upon an ancient and long-established legal system. The onset of social media has given rise to greater transparency and free expression, but it has also raised questions without clear or easy answers, such as the right to privacy.

Developments in the international scene in the past decades, such as the rise of the al-Qaeda or the tragedy of 9/11, have given birth to new challenges to human rights. Such crises were meant to destroy a particular way of life and way of thinking. They pushed people to rethink supposedly fundamental truths.

Te declared that the law curricula should revolutionize to meet the obstacles posed by such events. He believes that law education needs to be radically altered, to become multi-disciplinary, produce deep thinkers and veer away from bar-centered training. “Law schools should not be bound by tradition, but be the impetus for change.”

Defending resources

In her opening words, Dr. Leticia Shahani remarked that “it’s not often that an 83 year old senior citizen is invited to talk about the future. Usually we talk about the past.”

For Shahani, our country’s future lies in its water as 80% of our territory is maritime. She believes that “geography is our destiny,” that though alliances may come and go, our national interests will stay the same. We inhabit a unique place in the world, at the “center of the center” of marine shorefish biodiversity, rich in tidal and wave energy potential.

And although, as Shahani pointed out, we may be lagging behind in terms of military capability or technology, our interests and resources are worth defending. “We should know what is our own.”

Portable worlds

It is a well-known saying that the medium is the message. According to director Jose Javier Reyes, “the medium is not only the message; the medium defines the messenger. Who we are is defined not only by what we say, but also by how we say it.”

Reyes explained that in our day and age, attachment to information has become a matter of survival, that many of us cannot exist without the presence of media.  

“Engulfed,” “barraged,” “attached” – these are words to describe our relationship with media. Developments in technology have allowed man to feel as if he is part of the world as he isolates himself. The birth of the Walkman and increasing accessibility of television have transformed once shared, community or group activities into exclusive or individual activities.

“Before the Walkman, music was meant to be shared and appreciated not only by a single individual.” Innovators such as Steve Jobs have made the world smaller, creating portable worlds which have allowed individuals to define themselves. The term “mass media” is thus anomalous. It no longer exists. “Mass media is a virtual reality that we use to isolate ourselves on our terms,” Reyes said.

Visual storytelling

Rick Rocamora ventured into the future of visual storytelling. He spoke of the potential of technologies that many have access to. He dubbed the iPhone as the “future Leica of photographers,” saying that it was “great for photo documentaries: it’s small, it’s quick.”

Rocamora explained that the responsibility of a photographer is not merely to showcase his talent or his camera, but to capture profound truths. “Visual Storytelling is always about the subjects. Never about the photographer.”

He explained that the stories behind the camera were meant to be told. His photographs have been his tool in advancing his advocacies – a very potent tool at that. With his pictures, he helped a girl named Rodallie, who had lived on the streets, homeless her whole life, to graduate from high school and enter college. For this reason, he has been a firm believer that “every opportunity we have to tell a story” should be used.

Floods

Tony Oposa delivered a whirlwind of a speech, brimming with passion and just enough fury on the future of floods. He said that we have to accept that Metro Manila will one day return to what it was – a delta. “The obscure will be figured out sooner or later. The obvious takes a lot longer.” Ondoy showed Metro Manilans what a one-meter sea-level rise would look like. “In the laws of nature, there is no right or wrong, there are no rewards or punishments. There are only consequences.”

He explained how we have to prepare for the fact that the sea-level will one day rise even further, but that crisis is both danger and opportunity. It is an opportunity to revive cooperation, to bring bayanihan back to life.

Oposa believes that the time for talk is over, and that we must act now. “It is easy to make money, but it’s a hundred times better to make a difference.”

Sports

Jaemark Tordecilla spoke of the Filipino love for championships in sports. “Filipinos glorify our champions, but this underscores our biggest problem in sports. We don’t glorify out athletes UNTIL they’re champions.”

Most sports – and by extension, athletes – are under-valued and insufficiently funded. Basketball is the only sport where winning is not a prerequisite for public affection.

Basketball superstar Robert Jaworski proved that you don’t need a trophy in order to become a champion. In Tordecilla’s words, “We tell stories for basketball that we don’t tell for other sports.” And as Filipinos, “all we want to be told is a good story.”

Manila

Carlos Celdran ended the day’s discussion by giving us a virtual tour of his love affair with the city of Manila. Manila is the intersection of both East and West, of the old and the new.

Our dynamic history, the diversity of influences that have combined to form Manila are central to its identity. We have always been caught between the east and the west. “Us wanting to be elsewhere is the definition of Manila.”

It is a city with a turbulent history, one that lost its very soul when Intramuros was in ruins. For Celdran, the wreckage of World War II, Intramuros today, is his theater.

The city is central to his identity. “The more I define Manila, the more I define who I am.” Celdran is of the conviction that “if you can’t find beauty and poetry in Manila, you’ll never find it anywhere.

“The Future. Here. Now. Seize it.” This was more than a theme of a day’s worth of talks examining our future through different fields and different lenses. This is an injunction, a call for all of us to act for our collective tomorrow.

In recapitulating her take-home message from the day’s events, @mikkahipol said that “regardless of what you’re passionate about, if you are pursuing it, you are a nation builder.” And that “a country of passionate citizens is not far from progress.” – Rappler.com