Recognizing the role of librarians in shaping the minds of learners, Vice President Sara Duterte has assured them that her office will always get their backs.
“Our librarians in the Philippines will always have a friend in the Office of the Vice President because I believe in your contribution to our education, not just to our learners but even to our adults," she said during the Annual National Congress 2022 Philippine Librarians Association, Inc. (PLAI) in Iloilo City on Wednesday, Nov. 23.
"Lahat ng residents at lahat ng ating mga kababayan (All our residents and countrymen), they deserve libraries everywhere they go and every place they visit,” Duterte added.
The Vice President, who also heads the Department of Education (DepEd) in a concurrent capacity, stressed that many people learned to love reading because there are librarians who “understood our specific information needs and ushered us into finding the books that we needed.”
“This experience complements the lessons they get from their basic education, enabling them to be well informed, and in the end, allowing them to make informed choices and right decisions,” Duterte said.
“We do not want our society’s enemies to win over decent, honest, hard-working citizens — our learners, our children. We cannot let them take away our country’s hope and bright future,” she added.
Duterte further said that librarians also contribute a huge role in preventing fake news from infiltrating the minds of the children and the community.
"Just as we do not want fake news, confirmation bias, and conspiracy theories to infiltrate our communities and create false beliefs in our people, especially our children," she said.
"Every peace-loving Filipino should aggressively help the government in its pursuit to protect Filipino children from drugs, the NPAs, pornography, fake news, disinformation, from recruitment into violent extremism," she added.
"At malaki syempre ang papel ng mga librarians dito (And the librarians have a huge role to play in this)," she continued.
The Vice President also expressed hope that Filipino librarians would be up to the task of "supplementing school-based interventions by getting out of their comfort zones to help a new generation of Filipinos learn to love reading."