Regional Chapters

The Filipino Freethinkers operates largely within Metro Manila, where most of our committee heads and advocacy directors reside. Being an organization fully comprised by volunteers, we’re going to need help in engaging freethinkers who are not located in Metro Manila. If you want to help start your own Filipino Freethinkers regional chapter, here we provide some guidelines.

A Filipino Freethinkers regional chapter must:

  • Promote reason, science, and secularism.
  • Be consistent with the mission and vision of Filipino Freethinkers.
  • Be civil-rights minded and non-discriminatory.
  • Have at least two core leaders who will prepare reports to the Filipino Freethinkers Affiliations Director once a month. (These are just short narrative reports about your own meetups, which we may feature as articles on our site.)
  • Consistently conduct regular meetups.

The essence of Filipino Freethinkers is the meetup. Beyond the activism and the advocacies, the meetup is where freethinkers mingle and foster friendship and camaraderie. However, being a group dedicated to evidence-based discussion, it is important that meetup facilitators and attendees try not to coddle abject nonsense simply because of friendship and averseness to conflicts. The meetup is where we challenge each other’s ideas and come away with new ones. While we understand the value of open-mindedness, there is such a thing as having your mind so open that your brains fall out. It is often the case that the tolerance practiced by freethinkers is hijacked and abused by those not as willing to be constrained by facts.

So, how do we determine what is nonsense and what is not? So far, the best humans have come up with is the method of science and arguing from evidence. It is this curiosity tempered by skepticism that Filipino Freethinkers wishes to be a common trait in all meetups wherever a member decides to attend.

If you want to set up your own chapter, email our Affiliations Director, Garrick Bercero at [email protected]. Send us a short background on yourself, your local area, some of the members who will be helping you out in conducting meetups, and why you want to start up a chapter. We also ask that you send a short 500 word essay on freethinking, so that we can assess if your affiliation will be a good fit with Filipino Freethinkers.

Filipino Freethinkers reserves the right to choose which activities it will lend its name to. Affiliations are non-binding and may be terminated by either party at any time.