This year marks the 10th anniversary of Philippine Wikimedia Community, Inc., established as the PhilWiki Community, and founded on June 1, 2015 as an organization of unaffiliated Wikipedians in the Philippines. Wikimedia Foundation recognized the Community on October 17, 2015. The Community is a free, open and vibrant organization of Filipino volunteers and content editors from the Philippines and all over the world, who believe in the mission and vision of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. The nonprofit Wikimedia Foundation provides the essential infrastructure for free knowledge by hosting Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, created, edited, and verified by volunteers around the world, as well as many other vital community projects.
The PhilWiki Community (PH-WC), a non-stock, non-profit, operates out of Naga City and consists of 35 regular, 10 associate and 60 community members, supported by 3 staff and 105 volunteers. The Community aims to promote and increase the daily use of Philippine languages and deploy Wikipedia as a resource and medium for the dissemination of open knowledge and learning through these languages, namely Cebuano, Waray, Ilocano, Bikol, Kapampangan, Zamboanga Chavacano, Pangasinan and Tagalog.
The Community aims to initiate, promote, participate, create, organize, develop and engage in projects, programs and activities that promote free, responsibly open-content resources and reference materials, in English and in different Philippine languages through cost-effective, creative and innovative projects and partnerships with local government units, government agencies, academia, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. The following are the field notes of Jerome Hipolito, a paper presenter in this year’s conference, the Cebu Wiki Con:
I’m in Mandaue City for the Cebu Wiki Con, my third after attending the editions in Naga and Vigan. I am participating in this year’s conference as a paper presenter, discussing the milestones of CBSUA Wiki Education, a program of the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture—the first university to launch a Wiki Education program in the Philippines. This year, we received the Award of Excellence for “advancing free knowledge and our commitment to integrating Wikimedia projects in academic learning, fostering digital literacy, and empowering students and faculty to contribute meaningfully to open knowledge for the benefit of the community and beyond.”
The conference, hosted in celebration of Cebu Wiki’s 20th anniversary, gathered volunteers, educators, and advocates of open access from across the country. For CBSUA, the event was an opportunity to highlight how its Wiki Education initiative has grown since its formal launch on October 25, 2023, through a partnership with the PhilWiki Community and the Bikol Wikipedia Community.
Although collaborations with Wikimedia groups had been ongoing since 2012 with Wikipedians like Marvin Rojo Molin and Leah Banastao Sumalinog , CBSUA formally established its Wiki Education Program after I worked closely with the PhilWiki Community and Bikol Wikipedia Community, particularly with Mr. Irvin Sto. Tomas, the program’s director; Mrs. Maffeth Sto. Tomas, PhilWiki Community President; and the then Campus Administrator of CBSUA-Calabanga, Dr. Dariel Palmiano. At the same time, the CBSUA Wiki Club was founded to integrate Wiki projects into the university’s four mandates: instruction, research, extension, and production.
In just two years, CBSUA Wiki Education has launched a Wiki OJT program for AB English students, integrated Wiki-based activities such as Wiki Saysay (Essay) and Wiki Dakitaramon (Translation) into LitFest—a month-long celebration of literature hosted by the College of Education, participated in the Bikol Wikisource Training of Trainers in Naga, attended the GLAM Wiki Conference PH 2024 in Vigan, and co-organized the Hablon-Usipon Children’s Book Translation Workshop in June 11-12, 2025 to translate children’s stories into various Bikol languages, and partnered with Wikipedians in Waseda University Tokyo. All these become possible with the support of the current campus administrator, Dr. Ernesto Doloso, Jr. and the university president, Dr. Albert Naperi.
During a panel discussion in Cebu, I outlined the next steps for CBSUA Wiki Education, including the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the PhilWiki Community to expand the program university-wide. A long-term plan is in place to establish the Center for Open Access Resources, Knowledge Commons, and Artificial Intelligence, envisioned as a hub for research on open knowledge, Wikipedia, and artificial intelligence. I believe that to counter the stigma many Filipinos still hold toward Wiki, it is necessary to frame it as both a rich research field site and a collaborative space. Knowledge must meet learners wherever they are whether in the classroom or the virtual world.
The three-day Cebu Wiki Conference opened with a welcome dinner at the scenic Top of Cebu Restaurant on August 21, 2025. Sessions and workshops followed on topics such as Wiki and AI, food photography, birding, education programs, transcriptions, and translation. A visit to the Cebu Public Library, which is run 24/7 since June 30, 2025, where a manuscript transcription on Wikisource happened concluded Day 2, while the final day featured a cultural immersion at the city museum.
Another highlight that caught my attention on the second day of the Wiki Conference was the conversation about whether to delete or save Cebuano Wikipedia. Everyone is looking at the Cebu Wiki experience right now, given that a large portion of its millions of articles was created by a bot, leading to content that often lacks a human touch, meaningful relevance to local speakers, and sufficient active editors to maintain it. I see the need for new passionate Wikipedian volunteers, whether local to Cebu or affiliates, to support the cause. In the age of AI, humans should still be part of the process; that is how important human involvement is in movements like Wiki.
For CBSUA, the conference was not just about recognition but also an affirmation of its commitment. Accomplishing something today means doing what you truly love, sustaining it, and inspiring others to do the same. My involvement in the Wiki movement ultimately comes from the love of language and literature, and a commitment to open knowledge.
The header features the Cebu Provincial Capitol, the seat of the provincial government of Cebu (credit: Cebu Wiki Con)
About the author
A prominent Bikolano poet and educator from Calabanga, Camarines Sur, JEROME HIPOLITO is a writer, educator, visual artist, and one of the founders of Parasurat Bikolnon (PB Writers Inc.) In 2008, he bagged second place in the poetry category of the Premio Tomas Arejola para sa Literaturang Bikolnon. In 2019, he was the co-winner of the first Premyo Valledor, a novel prize for Bicolano writers with original novels written in Bikol.