The rise of AI in Philippine literary competitions

By Noel Galon de Leon

In recent months, I’ve had the privilege of serving as a judge in two of the country’s well-respected literary competitions, The Gawad Teodora Alonzo, organized by the Department of Education, and Gawad Bienvenido Lumbera, under the NCCA. Both of these contests exist to uphold something deeply rooted in our culture, the value of writing that springs from lived experience, from history, from memory, and from the distinctly human labor of crafting stories and poems by hand and heart. But this year feels different. Beneath the usual joy of reading entries from students and young writers across the Philippines, I’ve started noticing a creeping presence, one that feels both inevitable and unsettling. AI-generated entries are slowly finding their way into these competitions.

To be clear, I’m not here to demonize AI. I use it myself. I recognize its potential, and I’m not afraid of it. AI can be a wonderful tool to help writers brainstorm, experiment with form, or even overcome creative blocks. But we also need to recognize the limits of what AI should do, especially in spaces like these competitions, where the point isn’t just to produce words, it’s to honor human imagination, reflection, and originality.

Some people argue that AI is just another tool, like a pen or a laptop. But this comparison misses the heart of the issue. A pen doesn’t write your story for you. A laptop doesn’t compose a poem on its own. AI, however, can generate entire works of fiction, poetry, even essays with little more than a carefully written prompt. Submitting this kind of work to competitions meant to honor human creativity is not just unfair, it borders on dishonesty.

I worry because, in our country, conversations about AI are still in their early stages. Unlike other nations deep in debates about the ethics of machine-made art, the Philippines remains cautious, even skeptical. In some ways, this conservatism protects us. Our literary culture still values kuwento, karanasan, and katotohanan, stories rooted in community, history, and identity. We still believe that writing is a deeply human act.

But caution alone won’t protect us forever. Already, AI is slipping through unnoticed. Judging has begun to feel less like assessing creativity and more like spotting counterfeits. I find myself asking: Does this poem lack emotional depth because the writer is inexperienced, or because no human wrote it at all? This is not how judging should work.

The deeper concern goes beyond competitions. What happens to our culture when we start to normalize creations with no real human behind them? Filipino literature is born from struggle, from histories of colonialism, migration, poverty, and resilience. Our words carry the weight of memory, of pain, of joy hard-earned. AI doesn’t carry any of this. It writes from nothing. It feels nothing. It risks nothing. To elevate its outputs alongside works born from genuine human experience feels wrong.

At worst, this trend teaches young writers dangerous lessons, that shortcuts are fine, that effort doesn’t matter, that so long as something looks creative, it’s enough. In a country where education and critical thinking are already under constant threat, this is not a lesson we can afford to teach.

Still, I am not a Luddite clinging to the past. I believe AI has a place, but as a tool, not a substitute. To use AI to enhance your craft is one thing. To let it create for you and then claim that work as your own is another. That’s not innovation. That’s deception.

What we need now is clear guidance. Our institutions, DepEd, NCCA, cultural groups, and schools must start crafting guidelines on AI’s role in creative work. Not just to protect contests from fraud, but to uphold the very purpose of these competitions, to celebrate the Filipino spirit through words shaped by human hands, hearts, and histories.

More importantly, we need to talk openly and honestly as a nation, as communities of writers and artists. This isn’t just about technology. It’s about values, authenticity, integrity, and respect for the creative journey.

If we let AI dictate our competitions unchecked, we risk losing more than fairness. We risk forgetting why we write in the first place. In a country where so much has already been taken from us, our land, our voices, even our truths, we should fiercely protect the one thing AI will never possess, our human spirit.

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Noel Galon de Leon is a writer and educator at University of the Philippines Visayas, where he teaches in both the Division of Professional Education and U.P. High School in Iloilo. He serves as an Executive Council Member of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts-National Committee on Literary Arts.