Why the Philippines Could Lead—or Lose—the AI Ethics Revolution
The Global Beat by Gerald Lacuart
I’ve spent two decades as a journalist-technologist watching powerful people make decisions that shape millions of lives. Now I’m watching algorithms do the same thing, except they work faster, at greater scale, and with far less accountability.
Understanding the Stakes
The question that keeps me up at night: Will the Philippines help write the rules for this new power, or will we just live under rules written by others?
The answer might surprise you. We’re better positioned than you think.
Most people don’t know this, but the Philippines is already mentioned in global AI policy discussions. We’re called Patient Zero for digital disinformation, the testing ground where social media manipulation tactics were perfected before being exported worldwide.
The Other Side of Being Patient Zero
There’s the other side to being Patient Zero. We have developed antibodies. We know what information warfare looks like because we’ve lived through it during political upheavals and elections. And that experience is now being deployed at the highest levels.
Maria Ressa, the Nobel laureate who became famous for exposing Facebook’s role in spreading disinformation here, now sits on the United Nations AI Panel. She’s there because her Philippine experience gives her insights that Silicon Valley executives and Geneva bureaucrats simply don’t have. Our struggles have value. Our scars teach us things that others need to learn.
Innovative Solutions from the Philippines
While Ressa operates on the world stage, there’s a whole ecosystem of Filipinos building AI solutions that address uniquely Filipino problems. For instance, Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo, founder of NightOwlGPT, is using Natural Language Processing to preserve endangered languages. While Big Tech trains AI models on English and Mandarin, Lamentillo is making sure that Ilocano, Cebuano, and dozens of other Philippine languages don’t disappear into the digital void.
Gian dela Rama’s company built KIRA, the COVID-19 chatbot that millions of Filipinos used during the pandemic. Dr. Ethel Ong created ORSEN, a storytelling chatbot being used in classrooms. These are demonstrations that AI can serve communities, not just corporations.
Challenges in AI Development
But these innovators are swimming upstream. They’re building world-class solutions with so-called Third World budgets, competing against companies backed by billions in venture capital.
I recently spoke with sources at the Department of Information and Communications Technology and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas. They’re trying to build AI governance frameworks before the technology races too far ahead. It’s like trying to write traffic laws while the cars are already speeding down the highway.
I keep asking them the same question: How do you regulate something you don’t fully understand? How do you enforce rules when the technology evolves faster than your legal authority?
Their honest answer: They are figuring it out as they go.
Efforts Towards Governance
The effort is real. Undersecretary Jocelle Batapa Sigue is pushing for a National AI Council. Melchor Pablasan at BSP is developing ethical AI standards for the financial sector. These are serious people doing serious work. But the gap between policy ambition and technological reality keeps widening.
The Need for Responsible Regulation
My journalism background makes me nervous about certain kinds of regulation. I’ve seen how content moderation becomes content censorship when power changes hands. I’ve watched misinformation policies get weaponized against legitimate reporting.
When I hear calls for AI regulation, and we absolutely need it, I get worried. Not because regulation is bad, but because bad regulation is worse than no regulation. We need algorithmic accountability without algorithmic authoritarianism.
What does that mean in practice? Mandatory transparency. AI systems that make consequential decisions about Filipinos’ lives should have to disclose how they work, what data they use, and who’s controlling them. Audit rights. The ability to appeal when an algorithm gets it wrong.
Avoiding Authoritarianism
But not government power to decide what AI can or cannot say. Not surveillance infrastructure that could survive a change in administration. Not Filipino politicians wanting to ban Grok as a guise for suppressing free speech.
The solution to dangerous speech has never been silence. It’s more speech, better information, and systems transparent enough that citizens can judge for themselves.
Building a Talent Pipeline
Oliver Segovia and Jordana Valencia run the Philippine Artificial Intelligence Retreat, connecting Filipino researchers with Silicon Valley experts. They’re building a talent pipeline. But after we train our best minds in AI, many of them won’t come back. A fresh AI graduate can make $150,000 in San Francisco or $15,000 in Manila. We’re not just competing with other countries for AI talent. We’re competing with economic gravity.
Unless we create career paths, funding mechanisms, and research opportunities here, we’ll keep exporting our best people and importing their remittances.
The Fork in the Road
I left daily journalism to focus on this issue and re-equip myself in AI because I believe we’re at a fork in the road. One path leads to a Philippines that’s an AI consumer, using foreign tools, following foreign rules, and dealing with the consequences. The other path leads to a Philippines that’s an AI contributor, shaping the technology, writing some of the rules, and claiming a seat at the table.
The second path requires things we’re not good at: long-term investment, institutional patience, and the willingness to fund research that won’t pay off for a decade.
Our Unique Advantages
But we have advantages that money can’t buy. We have 110 million people speaking dozens of languages across thousands of islands, a natural laboratory for testing AI in diverse, challenging conditions. We have a diaspora that spans the globe, connecting us to every major tech hub. We have experience fighting digital manipulation.
And we remember what it’s like to be left out of technological revolutions. We remember being told that the internet would democratize everything, only to watch platforms amplify the loudest voices and bury the rest. We remember promises of connection that delivered division instead. That memory could be our superpower if we use it to build something better.
Conclusion: Choosing Our Path
The AI revolution is already here. The choice isn’t whether to participate. We’re already participating, whether we like it or not. The choice is whether we participate as architects or as tenants.
I choose architect. And I’m betting that enough Filipinos will choose the same.
But we’re running out of time. The foundation is being poured right now, in labs and boardrooms and government offices around the world. If we’re not in those rooms, or if we show up too late, we’ll spend the next fifty years living in a house we didn’t design.
That’s not acceptable to me. It shouldn’t be acceptable to you either.
