Bloggers read other blogs to be updated and just like ordinary blog readers, also to engage in discussions and to be entertained or enlightened.

We have grown to love some of the new blogs and I really wish they are recognized.  Good thing we have the writing project Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2009 which makes giving credit to these noteworthy blogs a community effort.

Here are my top 10 picks for 2009:

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is said to be preparing to use her state of the nation address tomorrow to raise anew the call for charter change.

It is thus a good thing that bloggers and Facebook users took on this issue with Cyberprotests and a Blog Action Day.

If Arroyo would indeed announce a renewed effort to ram down our throats this idea of a Constituent Assembly (ConAss) to keep her illegal hold on the presidency and to enshrine the failed policies of neoliberal globalization in the charter, then we have a great battle ahead of us and let’s not surrender an inch of our places in cyberspace to the regime’s lies.

The advent of the internet, especially blogs, microblogs and social networking, has pumped fresh blood to the mass movement of people seeking social change. The internet has obviously become a new platform for individuals and groups to voice out their views and to launch all sorts of initiatives. This is good anyway you look at it, except, of course, if you’re part of the rotten Establishment.

We are in a better position than, say, our Burmese neighbors thanks to the democratic space we continue to enjoy. That some continue to make full use of this space for civic-minded, pro-change purposes is admirable. We can only hope they stay the course and inspire even more Filipino netizens to make the internet their virtual bullhorns. 

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:

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”.

What do the Alabang, Paranaque and Quezon City incidents, the Kuratong Baleleng rubout, the suspicious slays of crusading journalists and the murders of nearly a thousand activists have in common?

They are all arguably extrajudicial or extralegal killings — deliberate murders of individuals by elements or agents of the state, with approval or sanction by superiors, without due process or outside of the law, and most of them are politically-motivated

Francis Magalona is dead. He succumbed to leukemia this morning at the Medical City hospital.

Vic Sotto, host of noontime show Eat Bulaga where Magalona was a cast member, made the announcement during the program.


For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

Magalona’s family is expected to announce the details of the wake and funeral arrangements shortly.

As the world searches for solutions to the global economic crisis, Prof. Jose Ma. Sison publishes his views on politics and the economy, on democracy and socialism and on the problem that is imperialist globalization. This is another step forward for Prof. Sison and the national democratic movement as they offer help to the country and the world towards understanding and addressing our situation.

Invitation to the launch of Prof. Jose Ma. Sison’s new books 

The Computer Professionals Union is calling on technology experts who wish to lend their skills and talent towards the deployment of a simple monitoring application for an NGO whose expertise is disaster response.

According to the CPU, the monitoring app will serve as “a grassroots monitoring tool for natural and man-made disasters in the country. We hope to create an alternative data source based on community reports of affected areas”.

[UPDATE: Digital PADEPA has moved to a new address]

National democratic activists have brought their school to the worldwide web.

PADEPA, short for Pambansa Demokratikong Paaralan (National Democratic School) has gone online with Digital PADEPA, making its courses available to activists and activist organizations who have long wanted to have obtain reference and teaching materials for political and ideological study online.

From Stuff