Screenshot of Dashboard Philippines on March 27, 2020. This example shows the banks around Manila, as well as the transportation routes running and their pick-up points. Users can click on the markers to get more information about the bank branches, such as opening times.
The anxiety and stress we are experiencing under the enhanced community quarantine come largely from the fear of the unknown and the uncertain. To battle that fear, and to assist Filipinos in their daily lives under quarantine, a group of young Filipinos, most linked by their former high school teacher, has built an online platform that provides consolidated local data in real time about transport routes, opening and closing times of key establishments, checkpoint locations, donation centers, and the like.
“The lack of data makes people feel like they do not know what is going on. If you feel like you don’t even know what is going on outside of your own house you will have fear,” Weston Coleman, the lead developer of Dashboard Philippines, told me in a call the day after their web application went live. Coleman has spent most of his professional life coding, accustomed to not simply just dealing with data, but transforming data into a suitable form for analysis and informed decision-making. “Since there is no data, decisions are made out of fear. There will be a higher risk of exposure. There are concrete negative effects from lack of information: panic buying, masses of people clustered together. If we know more, we will all be able to deal with the situation better.”
Weston Coleman shows Manila Bulletin Lifestyle what the backend of Dashboard Philippines looks like. Coleman’s main business is the debate management and analytics program Tabbr.
The idea for Dashboard Philippines started as a conversation topic Coleman had the day after the quarantine of Metro Manila took effect. The question of where the checkpoints were kept coming up in his various group chats with family and friends. All over Metro Manila people scoured the Internet or asked each other what businesses were closed and what businesses were open, where they were allowed to go and how they would be able to get there.
“There’s a lot of announcements, but not a lot of information,” said JB Tiu, head of the data team at Dashboard Philippines. Tiu and Coleman attended high school together at Xavier. As their barkada’s group chat blew up with questions about the community quarantine they realized there was a need for an application that consolidated all those announcements, providing reliable and easy-to-understand information for the public so that their fellow Filipinos could make well-informed decisions and feel confident in these extraordinary times.
JB Tiu runs a restaurant, but like many other mall businesses, he had to cease operations once the malls closed.
Dashboard Philippines started out with fewer than 10 coders, including Coleman. Over a couple of days, the data team web scraped, extracting data from online resources such as official government announcements, as well as media reports.
As the scope of the project grew, Coleman and Tiu reached out to their former teacher at Xavier, Martin Gomez, who came in as a consultant and posted about the application on Facebook. The post drew the attention of many of his former Xavier students who then expressed an interest in joining the project.
“There is even someone from the Batch of 2019. He calls me sir!” Coleman light-heartedly added. The team currently stands at around 40 individuals, and now spans roughly a decade of Xavier alumni, many linked by Gomez.
Zachary Will Sy‘s first year at Purdue University was interrupted because of the Covid-19 pandemic. “Since coming home, aside from taking enhanced sanitation measures and taking care of my health, I have been praying more and constantly finding ways to make myself stay busy,” said Sy.
“I first encountered Dashboard Philippines via a post I saw on my Facebook feed from my former teacher and mentor,” said Zachary Will Sy, a computer science freshman at Purdue University in Indiana. He was one of the many new team members who heard about Dashboard Philippines from Gomez. After his school announced they were shifting to online classes, Sy returned home, albeit nervous that President Donald Trump could include the Philippines in the travel ban.
“Regardless of my decision to pursue my university overseas, my heart is always with my fellow Filipinos,” Sy said. “While technology will always allow me to connect with anyone online, being here enables me to feel the pulse of what’s happening here and really be one with the nation in this unprecedented and frightening times.”
Stuck in Canada, Phillbert Tan works during a different timezone from his fellow team members. “I find it not only interesting,” said Tan, “but also fun because I get to work on a project for the betterment of society.”
Matthew Flores in front of the main library of Ateneo. “Education is a privilege, technology is a privilege, boredom is a privilege. But, as a friend of mine once said, ‘Our privilege is only of worth is used to empower and lift others,'” said Flores.
“For someone like me who is continuously involved in community development and different relief operations, it was a simple choice. More than the boredom that comes with being in a privileged position in the middle of quarantine, the more difficult to overcome is this feeling of inaction,” Flores said. “Luckily, technology has made it possible for us to act without even leaving our seats. In many ways, the quarantine has closed many facets of my life, but in other ways, it has opened my eyes to new avenues for social involvement.”
High school student Adrian Serapio works from home while his classes have been suspended. “The opportunity to help develop Dashboard Philippines empowers me to, in my own little way, help the community,” Serapio said.
One of the youngest members of Dashboard Philippines is senior high school student Adrian Serapio. Getting ready for the transition to college, Serapio was looking for ways to gain skills and challenge himself, as well as to help the community. Working on Dashboard Philippines, Serapio said, “I think it’s this process of slowly figuring things out and the collaborative energy that allows me to transcend the bounds of the quarantine and realize that, despite the dreadful situation, hope may not be completely lost. Programming challenges one to rethink what we think we are capable of, and I think that’s the most reassuring idea: that despite the situation, we are capable of always turning things around, overcoming the adversities thrown our way.”
Dashboard Philippines appeals to the public to be part of this initiative by adding information about key establishments, risk areas, transportation routes, and announcements related to the Covid-19 pandemic. By crowdsourcing as much data as they can, the application truly becomes for Filipinos, by Filipinos, together, wherever the Filipino may be.
If you are interested in contributing information to the Dashboard Philippines Database, click here. You can view the interactive map here.