ESEAP Strategy Summit 2025/Report/Ralffralff

Mabuhay! I am Ralff Nestor S. Nacor, also known as User:Ralffralff, a Filipino Wikimedian and is a part of the Core Organizing Team (COT) for Social Activities at the ESEAP Strategy Summit Manila 2025.

I am affiliated with the Pilipinas Panorama Community (PPC), one of the hosts of the recently concluded summit, and currently serving as the organization's President (2024 to 2026 Term). As a contributor, I am now focused with the Philippine Panorama Project which is one of our community's initiative for cultural heritage which has a direct impact to Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia in the Philippine community.
Outside of Wikimedia, I am a licensed Chemical Engineer and a Product Development Scientist in which I am currently handling Research & Development (R&D) projects for coffee and hot chocolate drinks. I also previously worked on beverages like beer, juice, carbonated water, and tea-based drinks.
I came from the town of Pili, Camarines Sur in the Bicol Region and is now living in Metro Manila for more than a decade.

Contribution & Participation

Question #1: What are the things the participant contributed or participated in or since the strategy summit?

Core Organizing Team - Social Activities

As part of the summit's Core Organizing Team for the ESEAP Strategy Summit Manila 2025, I became of part of the Social Activities Team. It was headed by Sir Johnny Alegre, with me and Ms. Bianca Brazal, as his team members. Prior to the summit, the Pilipinas Panorama Community already conducted meetups in Manila and partnerships with GLAM institutions. For the National Museum Tour, we already visited the National Museum of Anthropology (Manila 25 Meet-up) and National Museum of Natural History (Manila 20 Meet-up). For the Sky View Deck at The Bayleaf Hotel in Intramuros, we also visited the area during the Manila 25 Meet-up in which eventually be a venue for social activities in the summit.

Overall, I find the Social Activities part of the summit as a big success and I am very proud of it. Every participants enjoyed the museum tour and dinners in which they explored the streets, culture, and cuisine of the Filipinos. The National Museum tours provided the participants of an overview of the Filipino culture & tradition and it can also give them an idea of pursuing GLAM-Wiki initiatives in the future. The summit dinner's featured the Filipino cuisine for the participants to fully experience some of the country's food and beverage. I want to thank and congratulate the Social Activities Team and the Volunteers for this big success.

Social Activities Photographs

Other Featured Categories

Date: Day 2 - Dinner at Bistro Remedios; Day 3 - National Museum Tour and Dinner at Sky View Deck, The Bayleaf
Location: Day 2 - Malate, Manila City; Day 3 - Intramuros, Manila City

Gallery

"Ang Bistro sa Remedios" Marker at Bistro Remedios
Day 2 Dinner at Bistro Remedios

ESEAP Strategy Summit 2025 Scholars (Group A) at National Museum of Anthropology (Manila)
Museum tour inside the National Museum of Anthropology (Manila)

Ralff at the National Museum of Anthropology (Manila)
Social Activities Team with WAP and PPC Volunteers

Manila Cathedral during the Day 3 Intramuros Visit
PPC, WAP, and WMTH in the Day 3 Dinner at Sky Deck View Bar, The Bayleaf Manila

Wiki Advocates Philippines and Pilipinas Panorama Community at Day 3 of the Summit
Gaspé, Johnny, Ralff, JP, & Lawrence with Manila skyline view

Learnings from the Summit

Question #2: What are the things you learned at the strategy summit?

GLAM-Wiki Meetup

For the third day of the summit, I attended the GLAM-Wiki Meetup of the ESEAP Community. The Pilipinas Panorama Community (PPC) was represented by Sir Johnny (User:Buszmail), Sir Gaspé (User:Zirconaut), Ernest (User:PhiliptheNumber1), and me. I am very interested in this talk in which I will learn more about the ESEAP GLAM-Wiki Community. The event is a perfect avenue for us in the PPC to align our methodology and objectives with the whole ESEAP community. Featured in the photo is when Sir Johnny shared the PPC's advocacies and how did the organization made it in the host city of Manila.

We, in the PPC, have the GLAM-on-Tour in which we do museum visits and make partnerships with GLAM institutions in Metro Manila and the rest of the Philippines. At the gallery below, it features the publication materials for the GLAM-on-Tour in 2024 and 2025.

Date: Day 3 - May 25, 2025 (Sunday)
Location: Sheraton Manila Bay, Manila City

Gallery

Content & AI + Field Building Workshops

Prior to this workshop, I am actually planning to attend the ESEAP Community Skills Mapping Workshop. However, Charrie and MJ were assigned to the Breakout Room for the Global Trends Workshop and Field Building, and I intend to assist them in their assignment. I attended the Global Trends Workshop which discussed Content and AI (Artificial Intelligence). PPC's Charrie (User:Churihan) is a graduating student of B.S. Computer Science from the University of the Philippines Baguio (U.P. Baguio) and the topic is one of her interests in the field. I am glad with this since she is likely to pursue a profession and/or graduate degree program related to the given topic after her graduation. This workshop is a big help for her growth not just as a Wikimedian but also as a soon-to-be professional in the I.T. field.

The next event is the Field Building Workshop (from conceptualisation to actualisation - a pilot initiative)". The attendees were divided into tables preferably grouped with people with different communities. Our group is composed of representatives from Australia and the Philippines: Sir Eugene (WikiSocPH), Ms. MJ (SKAP), Charrie (PPC), and me (PPC). The group discussed how they manage and participate to their respective communities. Our group was represented by Ms. Belinda Spry of Wikimedia Australia in which she presented to the attendees what our group had discussed and agreed to initiate with our own respective communities. I have a lot of learnings for this workshop like I assessed our community's strength and limitations, and how can we address it in the near future. At the end, I intend to discuss these assessments to our organization members in our next community meetup.

Date: Day 2 - May 24, 2025 (Saturday)
Location: Sheraton Manila Bay, Manila City

Plans after the Summit

Question #3: What are your plans after the strategy summit (from what was learned or contributed in the strategy summit)?

Pilipinas Panorama Community (PPC)

For my plans after the strategy summit, I intend to focus on the growth of Pilipinas Panorama Community (PPC) throughout the coming years. Overseeing a young community is indeed a big challenge. For our next meetup, we will discuss the learnings of each participants from the summit e.g. organizational management from the Field Building Workshop. As an editor, I am also planning to conduct a Basic Wiki Editing Workshop for our community members here in Metro Manila which will tackle editing in Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Meta-Wiki. I am also excited to participate to upcoming projects being planned by other PPC members.

I also want to recognize the efforts of PPC Volunteers (Sir Gaspé, Ernest, and Charrie) in the summit. This is also their first time attending an international event within the Wikimedia movement. Prior being a Wikimedian, Sir Gaspé is already an experienced Information Technology (I.T.) Professional based in Metro Manila. We believe that his technical expertise will be beneficial to the community and the whole movement. Ernest was already a promising Wikimedia Commons contributor when he joined the PPC last year. As a photographer, he mainly contributes photographs related to Mass Transportation and GLAM here in Metro Manila. Also, despite having a thesis defense on May 26 (Monday), Charrie still provided her time to participate and volunteer for the summit. I can still remember seeing her reviewing their project and presentation for the thesis defense during the Dinner at Bistro Remedios. Lastly, I want to thank our community by featuring our members who represented the PPC for the summit in the gallery below.

Gallery

Members who represented PPC in the ESEAP Strategy Summit Manila 2025
Johnny (User:Buszmail)

J.P. (User:Markadan)
Gaspé (User:Zirconaut)

Ernest (User:PhiliptheNumber1)
Charrie (User:Churihan)

The Filipino Community

Along with my involvement in the Pilipinas Panorama Community (PPC), I contribute for Wikimedia as my own way of contributing for the preservation and promotion of Philippine cultural heritage. I may be a chemical engineer and scientist in my current profession, but before that I am an enthusiast of my country's history and culture. Wikimedia has provided me an avenue to pursue my passion and I am very thankful for it.

Listed below are some of my future plans as a Wikimedia contributor and cultural volunteer.

Continued Large-scale Contribution of Photographs. This summit is coincidental to the period as I reached my 5,000+ Philippine-related photographs contribution milestone in Wikimedia Commons. This mass contribution is attributed to PPC's own Philippine Panorama Project cultural heritage initiative. This project is a product of pure initiative with the objective of featuring less-known towns and areas by data gathering through intentional visit and improvement of their respective Wikipedia articles. Also, as I became a short-term student for half a year in Taiwan, I also contributed 1,500+ Taiwan-related photographs through my initiative known as the Taiwan Panorama Project.

Increase the Contributions in Wikipedia. In recent years, I mainly focused on Wikimedia Commons as a contributor and photographer. But English Wikipedia is the most viewed Wikimedia site in the Philippines and I can attest to it as a former student who previously relied on its content for educational purposes. I am aware of the criticisms from the academe for Wikipedia and as contributors - we, the Filipino Wikimedians, need to change it. That is why partnerships with Education and GLAM institutions are vital to fight disinformation and historical revisionisms in the world wide web. That is why as an individual Wikimedian, I am aiming to increase my rate of contributions to Wikipedia after this summit.

Collaborations with Other Wikimedia Communities. One thing which this summit had proven is that the multiple Wikimedia communities in the Philippines can collaborate as one to feature what our home country can offer to the international community. In behalf of the PPC, I am thankful to the organizing communities and individuals who made this summit possible by setting aside our differences from the day when Manila was chosen as the host city for the year of 2025. I am glad to see Filipino Wikimedians in a big event like this and also personally meet some of them for the first time. I am looking forward that collaborations between communities or as individuals will still continue after this summit.

Rise of Filipino Youth Contributors. This summit also saw the increasing involvement of the Filipino youth in the Wikimedia community of the country. As a community member, "time" may look as a constant thing but it is a critical parameter which is inevitable to everyone. Relevant things of the past may not be as relevant today. That is why, I am glad to see that the youth are gradually being involved for the benefit of the movement. In my community for example, the Pilipinas Panorama Community (PPC) maintains a good balance of veteran and youth Wikimedia contributors. In fact, PPC's own Ernest Malsin (User:PhiliptheNumber1) is the youngest participant for the ESEAP Strategy Summit Manila 2025. After the summit, he also shared his first time experience in an international Wikimedia event via his very first Diff article.
Vibrancy of Manila. Apart from being an international Wikimedia event, ESEAP Strategy Summit 2025 in Manila is also the largest gathering of Wikimedians in the Philippines in recent times. With collaborating Filipino communities and individuals, the local contributors and volunteers had seen the event's worth and importance in the national scale. As a member of PPC, I am delighted to see that activities related to Wikimedia are vibrant again here in Manila. After a period of dormancy, the city has now seen multiple community meet-ups and heritage tours for local Wikimedians. Metro Manila has a vast collection of GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) and PPC has vowed to utilize it for the benefit of the local Wikimedia community.

Others

Question #4: Do you have comments/ suggestions about the strategy summit?

(1) Location: The Sheraton Manila Bay Hotel in Malate district has a very strategic location if you want to explore the city of Manila. It is located in the heart of Manila which is close to heritage districts like Intramuros and Ermita. Though, I think a hotel close to NAIA (the airport) in Pasay would be ideal for a conference attended mostly by international participants. This would probably ease the transportation from the airport to the hotel. Having lived in the city of Pasay near the border of Manila City, I am very familiar with the Malate area and it is infamous for being a red light district. Personally, since I came from the northern city of Caloocan, it is accessible to me via the LRT-1 line.

Also, sharing to you the PPC's photowalk initiatives in the aforementioned districts of Manila and the whole Metro Manila.

(2) Weather: The timing of the event (May 23-25) is perfect since rainy season in the Philippines was not yet starting during the summit. The start of rainy season was announced a week after the summit. Normally, rainy season in the Philippines (especially in Metro Manila) could start as early as the middle of the month of May. In case it was already rainy season during the summit, it would be a big challenge for us in the Social Activities Team.

Maraming Salamat sainyong lahat!