tonyocruz.com

I really loved my quick visit to Colorado.

If Los Angeles and New York are world cities and dotted by skyscrapers, Colorado is vastly different. (more…)

I’m continuing the series of photos I took from a recent trip to the United States.

This time, I’ve posted some pictures from San Diego (more…)

I’ve started posting photos I took from my 15-day trip to the United States.

First installment: Los Angeles. (more…)

Last June 3rd to 5th, media experts, new media players, media producers, researchers, journalists, activists and others interested in the rise of new media gathered at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication in Los Angeles for the Beyond Broadcast 2009 conference.

Organizers invited this blogger/journalist/activist to speak at the opening plenary session that sought to share local perspectives on new and mobile media. I shared the table with new friends from the Americas, Africa and Asia and we discussed our initiatives and innovations. As the speaker from the Philippines, it was a joy to share Filipinos’ sophisticated use of mobile phones for progressive political purposes.

Here is the full text of my input at that opening plenary session:

Local Perspective: The Philippines’ mobile and new media activism
Anthony Ian M. Cruz
President, TXTPower
Beyond Broadcast 2009

The Philippines is the 12th most populous country in the world. We Filipinos are a people of 90 million spread over 7,017 islands. 11 million Filipinos live and work abroad, especially in the Middle East and the United States.

Today, Filipino mobile phone users number more than 70 million. We send one billion text messages a day. We have more cellphones than landlines. We are a migrant people, with Filipinos traveling and moving from one island to another and from one foreign country to another. Communication is therefore very important to us as a people.

Formed in August 2001, TXTPower is an organization that seeks to empower Filipinos both as consumers and as citizens. While we do not profess to be media or new media organization, TXTPower from the very start until today depends on new media to amplify its positions, influence and mobilize the public, and to compel government and big business to respect the people’s rights. (more…)

Everyone’s invited to:

Please repost in your blog and attend this important event.

Yes, folks, our sophisticated use of cellphones makes Filipinos a star here in the Los Angeles conference I’m attending.

Speaking at the Beyond Broadcast 2009 plenary session yesterday (Thursday in Manila), I shared how we make use of mobile phones for pro-consumer and pro-people ends. Read more about it at the TXTPower website.

I’ve met many great new friends. More news in the coming days.

Bloggers in Metro Manila and nearby areas are invited to:

“Nakamamatay na Pagbubuntis: Makialam, Makiisa, Tumulong”
A forum with bloggers and reproductive health advocates

on Tuesday, June 2, 2009, at 4:30 PM at Centerstage Alfresco, 2nd Floor, CTTM Square, Timog corner Tomas Morato Avenues, Q.C.   (more…)

For the past few months, the House committee on oversight quietly studied how revenue agencies could jack up the proceeds from gazillions of pesos in a new tax to be siphoned off from Filipino cellphone users.

In its narrow view, the House panel avers that government is not able to check whether the taxes remitted by telcos were above board and commensurate to their total income and sales. Lest we forget, the government already imposes a 12 percent VAT on calls and text as well as an overseas communications tax on international services. These taxes apply to all subscribers, whether postpaid or prepaid.

For these Members of Congress, the solution to the purported loopholes in VAT and OCT collections is to ask the public to pay between five to 50 centavos in a new tax. Proceeds will go to buying metering machines each worth between $20M to $30M. The metering machines would connect the BIR, NTC and the telcos and would purportedly plug the loopholes. (more…)

Various groups today challenged the Commission on Elections to release the source code of the for the Precinct Count Optical Scan-Optical Mark Reader (PCOS-OMR) technology to be used for the 2010 elections.

In a joint statement, the groups said that the source code should be opened to IT professionals and other parties interested in scrutinizing and testing it. (more…)

Hundreds trooped to the University of the Philippines on Saturday for the iBlog5 5th Philippine Blogging Summit, including my old and new friends friends in the Philippine blogosphere.

(more…)

Nielsen Media presented anew on Thursday night the highlights of the Yahoo-Nielsen study titled Net Index 2009 Philippines which is touted as “the first in-depth media study of internet users in urban Philippines”.

Jay Bautista, executive director of Nielsen Media, presented the results of the study last night before members of IMMAP, journalists and bloggers at a bar at Bonifacio High Street, The Fort.

Download the highlights of the study as presented by Bautista through the link below: (more…)

Another group has come forward to recognize the role of bloggers in raising public awareness on important issues.

Bloggers are now welcome to join the 5th PopDev Media Awards, a project of Philippine Legislators’ Committee on Population and Development (PLCPD).

This is open to all Filipino bloggers who have blogged about any of the following issues: issues such as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), public health (especially reproductive health), reproductive health policy and governance, economic growth and poverty, climate change, housing and urban development, sustainable development, environment, education, gender, maternal health, adolescent reproductive health, family planning, food security, reproductive rights, migration, and population ageing.

The topics are as broad as they can be and this is good news to bloggers.

For more information, please refer to the PLCPD’s press release below: (more…)

It is taken for granted or regarded lightly, but the relative freedom we enjoy in expressing ourselves through is heaven compared to the hell experienced by bloggers in other countries.

In naming the “worst online oppressors”, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) notes that “booming online cultures in many Asian and Middle Eastern nations have led to aggressive government repression”. (more…)

The country’s chief magistrate continues to push the envelope on the immoral regime.

In this speech he gave today before doctors, Puno railed against corruption and batted for a transformational leadership to save the country.

Puno also said that the Moral Force Movement may be non-partisan but that it cannot be neutral.

The Department of Foreign Affairs announced today that three Filipinos were quarantined at a Hong Kong hotel, the same hotel where a swine flu-infected Mexican checked in recently.

I hope our thousands of Filipino workers there take extra precautions.

Here is the full press release from the DFA:

The Philippine Consulate General in Hong Kong reported that there are three Filipino guests at the Metropark Hotel in Wanchai who were covered by the seven-day quarantine operations imposed by Hong Kong health authorities.

Hong Kong’s Department of Health imposed, as a temporary emergency measure, a seven-day quarantine on its reported first case of H1N1 human swine flu at Metropark Hotel on 01 May. The H1N1 patient is a Mexican male who checked in at the hotel but later brought to the Ruttonjee Hospital after experiencing coughs, sore throat and other flu-like symptoms. The quarantine will last until Friday, 08 May 2009. (more…)

Today is World Press Freedom Day.

It should be a happy day for the Philippines, considering that we always boast of having the freest press in Asia, but (more…)