Tagalog Wikisource has been approved by the Language Committee of the Wikimedia Foundation. It is the second Philippine language based edition of Wikisource to be supported by the foundation within 5 months after Bikol Wikisource. As of March 2025, Wikisource text units have been created in 79 languages.
The Philippine Wikimedia Community (PhilWiki Community) User Group is actively supporting the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts (WILMA) and other programs advocating the preservation of indigenous languages and intangible heritage. The Philippines is the first implementer of WILMA program outside Indonesia.
At the Wikisource Conference 2025 held last month in Sanur, Bali, Indonesia, presenters Irvin Sto. Tomas and Maffeth Opiana-Sto. Tomas in the session Collaboration Toward an Open GLAM: The Case of Wikisource Loves Manuscripts in the Philippines talked about the best practices for sustaining the activities, strategies in fostering collaboration among the participants, and the learnings and challenges in implementing the WILMA PH program. The event with the theme Wikisource: Transform & Preserve Heritage was an international gathering to enhance global collaboration among Wikisource contributors.
Launched in June 2024, the WILMA PH program aims to develop a pool of competent trainers, engage GLAM staff to strengthen their capacity, and collaborate with heritage, language, and cultural organizations to build an open library in different Philippine languages including Ilokano, Cebuano, Waray, Hiligaynon, Pangasinan and Kapampangan. GLAM is an acronym for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.
Over 50 participants from the College of Engineering and Architecture at the University of Nueva Caceres, Center for Rinconada Culture and The Arts at the Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges, Cararayan National High School at DepEd Naga City Division, and the College of Education at the Central Bicol State University of Agriculture-Calabanga completed the basic and advanced Wikisource training courses and the pilot training of trainers last August 2024.
The PhilWiki Community, in collaboration with the Bikol Wikipedia Community and the Nueva Caceres Heritage Movement Inc., have onboarded new contributors from several Wiki Clubs and GLAM institutions onto Wikisource. They were engaged in transcribing, proofreading and validating over a dozen of translations of novels, novenas, metrical verses, among others through symposia, workshops and proofreading contests.
The novels ‘Noli me tángere’ (1887) and ‘El filibusterismo’ (1891) originally written in Spanish by Philippine national hero Dr. José Rizal were translated into the eight major Philippine languages by the Jose Rizal Centennial Commission (JRCC) in the 1960s. These masterpieces along with his other literary works are now available on Wikisource and other digital libraries. The JRNCC publications became digitally available only in 2023 via the National Memory Project of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP).
Wikisource – The Free Library – is a collaborative project to create a growing free content online library of source texts, as well as translations of source texts in any language.
Irvin Sto. Tomas from the PhilWiki Community UG engaged his community to grow the Wikisource community in the Philippines. Currently, he serves as an administrator of Bikol Wikisource, board secretary of the Commons Photographers User Group and a member of the ESEAP Preparatory Council.
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