When Philippine Media is threatened, that’s where accountability of human basic rights crosses the threshold. I started The Spectrum because I extremely believe in the power of story-telling, of how important it is to inform people in the sphere of Social Media, and how important it is to battle disinformation and misinformation. These factors became my uproot reason as to why I established the youth-led organization.

Social Media became an open forum for people who are vocally active in terms of politics, current, and public affairs. As we emerged into this new generation, it is hard to battle people’s hoax statements and fraud information without even standing on a factual basis. Moreover, I want to uphold Press-Freedom, for I believe that it is a democratic right that is dying under the hands of suppressive leaders. Serving translucent information is a must, prevailing the truth is a need for this country who are suffering from different societal issues, e.g. Poverty, Social Inequality, Environmental Injustices, Abuse of Power, and more. The situation that we have right now became an eye-opener for me, and it recognized my belief of how important the media is. Aside from that, I wanted to use this opportunity to improve my leadership skills and share my idealistic knowledge and experience with the subordinates I have.

For the most part, I named my organization ‘Spectrum’ because it is a band of colors, produced by the separation of the components of light, it is reflecting in my personal belief that every person has different degrees of refraction according to what they believe in. It implies that no matter what contents we are going to post, the way how the people react to it, will always be dependent on how they interpret it, and we are existing as we serve as their wavelength. My Co-Founder and I made a systematized process that could help us continue even if we have online classes. The decision-making process was not easy, we do video conferences every night just to make sure that things will be refined and contextualized. The Spectrum is an officially registered Youth Organization under the National Youth Commission, a government agency in the Philippines that specifically addresses issues surrounding the Filipino youth who encompasses bright Youth Organizations around the Philippines.

I launched The Spectrum last May 4, 2020, this year. Together with my Co-Founder, She became my support-system in turning my blueprints into a real output that primarily serves as a purpose during these tough times. We promote forms of News Media that focuses on delivering news to the general public or a target public. The Spectrum is a News\Media Company with an endeavor to achieve Community Engagement through the means of Creative Journalism which aims to tap and shape an effective and positive change in communities around the Philippines. To understand the depth of our rationale, we do not just publish News but also, we hallmark Filipino’s commendable, inspiring, and notable stories. We want to serve as a platform of inspiration where everybody can count on by publishing filler news and featured stories from the communities all over the Philippines.

The Spectrum has been operating for almost 5 months now, we post daily, but we limit only up to 2 contents, we also publish News recap on our YouTube channel. The Spectrum is composed of 7 departments: Media Writing, Content Editing, Civic and Community, Social Media, Publicity, Multimedia, and Advertising & Partnership. The Spectrum has already 40+ official volunteers around the Philippines. We already reached 4 thousand likes on Facebook, partnered with more than 8 organizations, and is currently partnered with Southeast Asian Organization which is ASEAN Youth Forum and ASEAN Youth Organization. One of the things I am grateful for is the volunteers behind this initiative, I love how diverse the people are, and how we sought our different perspectives in life. Some people left because of the disjointed organizational development at first, but as a leader, I cannot let anything happen without validity, I did my best to put it all up together, and I’m proud to say how we became a non-biological family that treats each other as a family during these present times.

We value attributed stories that pertain to issues or topics that are in the notoriety of public concern rather than to issues or topics about which people care less. The number of our audience whose lives will be influenced will be the subject of the story. We publish stories about events and situations in one’s home community that are more newsworthy than events that take place far away and impose the quality or power of inspiring belief with credibility considered as reliable sources that provide information that one can believe to be true. My goal for The Spectrum is to become one of the leading pioneer youth-led organizations in the country. We will always serve as an inspiration to every youth, that we are an empowered leader that nurtures the importance of youth in our sector.

The organization itself may not be relevant to some people nowadays because they don’t want to be drastically involved in these present issues. But for me, and the whole team of The Spectrum, it is not just a vital role, but it is also a responsibility to inform citizens about Public Affairs and monitor the actions of the Government at all levels. The people have less trust in the Media now, we even receive hate comments and negative outburst, some of them would say that we are paid hacks now. The Spectrum is publicly critical because everybody should be, otherwise, who’s going to hold the government accountable?

People don’t read anymore and try to understand what is happening. It is easy for others to pass information to their friends without even standing on a factual basis. While we can speak now, it is now. Before we became a journalist, we were also a Filipino. The large part of us, being a journalist, is the fact that we care about our country, and that’s a lot to take in. The attack of the Media was consistent and systematic, but that will not be a scare for our silence. Our task as a journalist is also to correct errors of perception and to correct the emerging outright lies that affect thousands of people.

We will be extending our virtual, and family newsroom soon, keep up to date and support our page by clicking this link: https://www.facebook.com/SpectrumMedia.Philippines