VICE President and Education Secretary Sara Duterte-Carpio stressed the importance of libraries, saying that they remain relevant amid the evolution of technology.

At the opening of the 32nd Library and Information Services Month at the National Library, Duterte-Carpio lauded library personnel, calling them “literacy partners of the Department of Education.”

“As a repository of knowledge, libraries play a crucial role in ensuring that our people are well-informed, making them assets to our schools, communities, and nation,” she said.

These learning facilities have maintained their integrity, she added, but this is “not an easy task in this day and age.”

“Today we are virtually swimming through a vast, endless ocean of digital information. And just like an ocean, the information that can be had through digital information is breathtaking as it is abundant. But it is not without dangers,” Duterte-Carpio said.

“Those waters are often perilous. Like the deep blue sea, the digital world has an ecosystem that — if not managed well, if not utilized well — may confuse the public, steal away the quality and truthful information, contribute to miseducation, and lead them right down its darkest parts,” she added.

The Vice President underscored the significant contribution of libraries to self-enrichment and personal development.

“This brings me back to the relevance of advocating for the importance of libraries, given that they are founded on the idea of a real community organizing a wealth of information and serving for the personal enrichment of the people,” she said.

Duterte recalled that during the pandemic, when she was still mayor of Davao City, the city library launched “Share a Book” to provide children educational activities during the lockdown.

“Through the Davao City’s Mobile Library — a bus loaded with books and other reading materials — books were delivered right to the barangays. And children were asked to choose which books they want to read,” she added.