Digital culture gap? The Philippines still doesn’t have enough people talking about culture

Historical stories do not fit easily into the modern internet. They do not sell products instantly, they are hard to pack into 15-second videos and the recommendation engines usually pass them over for things that get quick clicks.

“Culture is an accumulated wisdom, creativity and experiences of generations,” Henares said. Dealing with generations of history requires a kind of patience that social media apps try to eliminate.

Worse, the algorithm acts like a mirror, showing you only what you already like. If you do not search for history, the app will never put it on your screen. 

Dennis Marasigan, vice president and artistic director at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, says users have to break the machine on purpose: “The way to change the algorithm is for you to actually follow specific things that may be out of your comfort zone... follow Ivan [Henares], follow Ayala Museum, follow Cultural Center of the Philippines, so that your algorithm will change.”

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Because creators are not posting about history, museums and cultural groups have to do the heavy lifting online. When the CCP closed its main building for long-term repairs, it lost its physical home. Marasigan saw this as a good thing. “The fact that we don’t have that building made us even more aware that there is more opportunity, and perhaps a bigger responsibility, to try to reach as many people,” he said, “Not only in terms of providing them with cultural experiences, but also in presenting the idea
that culture is not something you see simply on stage. Culture is all around us.” 

Other museums are also doing the same thing. Jorell Legaspi, deputy director-general of the National Museum, recently helped send Juan Luna’s Una Bulaqueña, a National Cultural Treasure, to the Louvre Abu Dhabi for one year. Additionally, two gold objects from the Ayala Museum collection have also been on loan at the Louvre Abu Dhabi for the fifth year.

They sent it there specifically for the millions of overseas Filipino workers living in the region, giving them a reminder of home and a sense of pride.

Legaspi knows that for people living thousands of miles away, this and the phone screen is the only museum they have:

“Museums today have a role to play, not just at a national level, but also globally, because conversations are happening globally. Many people have access to more information through platforms such as TikTok... It’s important that museums also engage in these spaces, too.”

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The real danger of this empty digital space is that what goes unrecorded eventually disappears completely. Legaspi remembers growing up as the kid who carried the family camcorder, saving memories on VHS tapes. He looks at kids today who have massive production tools right in their hands, but notices how much still slips away. He pointed to the old, hand-painted movie billboards that used to line the streets of Manila. An entire art form vanished because nobody filmed it or kept a record.

“The generation today that are on social media are so lucky that there are so many ways of recording reality today,” Legaspi said. “This will forever be digitised and saved.”

If a country fills its internet only with viral jokes and shopping links—while they serve a purpose—it slowly erases its own identity. A phone screen can save history or let it fade away. If the people who hold the phones do not start talking about where they came from or their culture more, the next generation might look at their feeds and see almost nothing at all.

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