AIJC President Ramon R. Tuazon (right) with ADCEP President Dr. Rotacio Gravoso (left) and WVSU President Dr. Luis M. Soralla, Jr. (center).

President of the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication (AIJC) and chairperson of the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) Technical Committee for Communication Ramon R. Tuazon gave the keynote address at the 2017 Association of Development Communication Educators and Practitioners (ADCEP) National Conference held from 30 November to 03 December 2017 at the West Visayas State University, Iloilo City.

Tuazon called for activist development communication. He urged development communicators to be reformist and to be involved in addressing systemic and institutionalized development problems—specifically, inequity, injustice, and the breakdown of the rule of law. He warned that failure to relate development communication initiatives with these problems will render development communication irrelevant.

According to Tuazon, development initiatives will not make any difference or be sustainable if these structural problems are not solved. Farmers can improve agricultural outputs but remain poor. Well-equipped medical centers can be built, but many would still not receive the benefit of seeing a doctor. Entrepreneurs can burn the midnight candle but their profits remain marginal.

During the forum, Tuazon identified algorithm and dataism as the two most revolutionary concepts in the 21st century to challenge all major sectors and fields, most especially communication.

Says Tuazon, “Algorithm—inclusive of advanced data processing, artificial intelligence, and robotics—continues to change our development landscape and ‘mindscape.’ How development communication can capture, analyze, and explain the unlimited promises and potentials of algorithm will be our biggest challenge for this new century.”