In this age of rapid technological advancement where the global village is hungry for open knowledge, digitization of local culture, arts and living heritage, the need to organize and institute a Creative Commons chapter is more of a necessity. There has been a few groups of individuals who  advocate open values, practices and resources in the Philippines for quite some time now  but the impact is not that significant, that it cannot cope up with the demand to seriously advocate open values, licensing and sharing of content during this massive content production from across the digital and non-digital realm. 

BIRTHING CREATIVE COMMONS PHILIPPINES 

I have been an open knowledge advocate, sharer and a volunteer since 2011, for Google and for Wikimedia Movement and we have done so many projects that are important, beneficial and useful to our communities in the Philippines. But in the field of policy and legal, Copyrights Law and licensing- we have not done anything yet. I am a Communications Strategist and finished Doctor of Laws recently. We have been discussing organizing and launching a Creative Commons chapter in the Philippines for a few years now and it is still in the discussion table. 

Benchmarking CC Mexico. When I attended the CC Global Summit 2023 in Mexico City, I got in touch with the members of CC Mexico, one of the most active CC chapters in the world. I researched how they do things, how they advocate CC, how do they keep the organization active and sustainable, how did they start and keep the fire burning. There I realized that CC Mexico has a huge body of knowledge ready to be shared with the world. They have the most number of museums, artifacts, intangible and tangible cultural heritage and a very artistically-inclined people. 

The Philippine context has similarities with the Mexico community in terms of having a huge body of knowledge. We have been conquered by the Spaniards, Americans and Japanese, influenced by the trade relations with the Chinese, we are an archipelago of big and small islands each has its own culture and way of life. 

Taking up the CC Course on Open Culture made me realize that the Philippine community of Creative Commons is right for birthing to promote open values, knowledge sharing, practices and resources. I have learned so much from the global summit, and from the Open Culture Course.

Lessons from the CC Open Culture course. When were discussing the chaptership of CC Philippines as part of the CCGN, we agreed to adopt the new strategy of Creative Commons as a solid starting point for the new chapter. We are going to adopt the new strategy on Advocacy, Innovation and Capacity Building as fundamental building blocks of our chapter. We need to advocate the use of CC licenses to creators in the Philippines, innovate copyright laws, public policy, commons-based governance, social practice and culture. There is also a need to capacitate CC members across the archipelago in order to have more people advocate nurturing commons, its new forms and practices needed at all levels. 

We are thinking of organizing Creative Commons workshops with various stakeholders across the country, explaining and talking about  the benefits of CC licenses, the copyrights laws, implementing rules and regulations (IRR) and other open values practices pertaining to content creators and content users. 

Lastly, we know that this plan will face challenges such as organizational birthing pains, the lack of support by the authorities and the seemingly small ripples that will come from a small group of people advocating open values, practices and resources – the commons- the wealth that we inherit or create together and must pass on, undiminished or enhanced to our children such as the gifts of nature, civic infrastructure, cultural works, traditions and knowledge.