“Happy Buwan ng Wika!” said the poster, filled with foreign elements and a style that has been too common; soul-lacking and empty. As I scroll through my feed, each poster is getting more and more heavily made by AI. I remember the times where I struggled to find the right hue for my posters and the correct translation for my speech. In those moments, I wanted convenience more than anything, but looking back now, I’d rather break a crayon and misspell words than to generate lifeless art.

For them, it is convenient and easy; but for many, it is barren and empty.

Our culture as Filipinos is one to preserve. With raging wars that ended quickly to silent ones that took 300 years to overcome—one thing’s for sure, our history is not one to be forgotten easily. Hence, to keep the narrative alive, we have Buwan ng Wika. A celebratory month that serves as a way for Filipino youth to appreciate our culture through creativity and talent that showcases who we are as a country through the lens of the young—full of life and soul.

One would remember the cackle of children as they run about in barongs and hands stained in color during the month. Now, silence along with the subtle sound of typing the next prompt for another poster.

But even the flag stops beaming of pride once there is no wind—so does our culture when no one raises it. As we reach the modern age of today’s world, we now have what we perceive as “convenience” on our side.

With just one prompt, you can create what years of experience can only do for humans.

With just one tap, you can make an essay in Tagalog as if you actually understand the language.

With one call of AI, you can exchange our culture that radiates life for convenient and empty answers.

This what “convenience” is—easy, yet empty. The very same convenience has now found its way to seep into our way of celebrating buwan ng wika, staining the month with its muck and slop.

Every scroll you make, you see generated lifeless posters. In every art you see, you find prompts attached to each one. And every moment you hear the words, “Buwan ng Wika”, it is no longer the month full of culture and pride that flashes in your head, instead, it is now one filled AI generated posters and prompts that signify “effort” they say.

Competitions are more focused on prompt structures. Posters are not drawn, they are generated. And creativity is no longer unique, but homogeneously hollow. The children of this age enters a world where the beauty of understanding our culture is mostly found inside a keyboard and is made through a string of words and a microchip. It does not boost creativity, it kills it.

As this ensues, students continue to become too dependent on technology and forget the true meaning of the value of celebrating buwan ng wika. They have forgotten what it means to be authentic even when the product is bad, not satisfactory or even downright horrible. Instead of truly understanding our limits and expanding their skills, we push ourselves to choose more convenient solutions.

AI has no place in creativity or in the month we celebrate our culture. It does not pave the way for innovative minds, but instead molds them to reliance.

We must embrace our own. Be creative, even when it is messy. Be authentic, even when it is imperfect. Be a Filipino, even when other cultures interfere. Pick up that pencil and draw an asymmetrical face that tells a story. Go speak that script full of incorrect grammar that shows life. In the end, it’s never about how fast you make it or how easy the process was—but was about the story behind it, something your AI can never replicate.

The Frontman