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Today is #juanvote Blog Action Day and I have these questions to ask candidates for senator, and district and partylist congressperson:

  1. Internet freedom is important to Filipinos: Are you going to file or support a bill repealing the Cybercrime Law and the Data Privacy Law?
  2. Government and all officials should be accountable and transparent to citizens: Are you going to file or support a bill on Freedom of Information?
Nigh time at Siem Reap, Cambodia. (Photo from Wikipedia/Wikimedia)

SIEM REAP, CAMBODIA – Bloggers from across Asia, including a number of Filipino colleagues, have started to arrive in droves here in this beautiful part of Cambodia for the BlogFest.Asia 2012 for several days of fellowship, group study, discussion and fun too.

The program covers diverse topics from the basic to advanced, and also aims to discuss issues and concerns that affect bloggers and technologists in the continent. Topics include: mobile blogging, photo blogging, digital comics, Wikimedia Commons, Internet Security, online advocacy, long form writing, the Philippines’ cybercrime law and Southeast Asia media situation. 

The technical working group formed by the Department of Trade and Industry has released a draft final report on the application of DTI rules on the requirement of sales permit for all online sales promotions.

In the interest of transparency and to allow as many bloggers to check and react to the draft final report, I am sharing the document in full:

Referring to extrajudicial killings and the killing of journalists in the Philippines in his July, 2010 State of the Nation Address, President Benigno Aquino III declared that his administration would “hold murderers accountable.”

Despite that pledge, six journalists have been killed since then, or a total of ten since the Ampatuan Massacre of November 23, 2009 claimed the lives of 58 men and women, of whom 32 were journalists and media workers.

President Aquino has yet to check and challenge the culture of impunity in the Philippines: Six journalists and scores of activists have been killed since he took his oath as president..

In addition to the killings that have continued in the Aquino administration, a number of community journalists have also been threatened, sued for libel on the flimsiest grounds, barred from attending interviews and press conferences, and physically assaulted. In a recent incident, unidentified persons also burned a Catholic Church-owned radio station in Occidental Mindoro. All are indicative of a state of mind among those who want to silence the press that could, in the present circumstances, lead to murder.

In preparation for the Nov. 23 International Day to End Impunity, media groups CMFR and NUJP call for a Blog Action Day.

Over 500 days have passed since Benigno Aquino III assumed the presidency on a pro-change platform – but families of victims of extrajudicial killings have been made to wait and to wait longer for presidential action needed to spur decisive action by government.

The administration has not done anything meaningful to address the political killings that were an indelible mark on the previous administration. A few statements in speeches, yes. But compelling action, nada.

Even as consultations and discussions are ongoing, but it seems there are bloggers who cannot wait to be part of what is turning out to be a controversial initiative.

The draft manifesto below hopes to provide a starting point towards forming an association of Filipino bloggers. Please feel free to make suggestions to improve this statement of intent.

Members of this future organization will make the final decision on the name to use, the constitution and by laws, its officers and its programs and policies. If you wish to join as a founding member, please sign up below:

This blogger speaks at the Visayas Blogging Summit in 2010. Photo by/from callezaragoza.com.

(Post updated. Changes in brackets. Thanks.) I have long wanted to do something: To help form a national bloggers association in the Philippines. The premises are simple: We are a growing community, with more younger Filipinos trying to start their own blogs. We have worked together in many instances. We have organized events. Some of us have made blogging a career or a profession. We have been sought in interviews. Some have been considered experts in their own fields of interests. Blogs have become media too. Government and business have gone blogging and gone digital. Just imagine what we could do together if we have an organization that would take all these forward.

Ka Satur Ocampo, the respected leftist statesman running for the Senate this year, doesn’t look and act like he’s 70 years old, which he already is. His endurance is obvious in his active leadership and participation in street protests. He’s young at heart, remaining true to the hopefulness of the ranks of young Filipinos to which he once proudly belonged.

Blogfest.asia: Change and Responsibility (Photo by Charles Mok on Flickr)
Blogfest.asia: Change and Responsibility (Photo by Charles Mok on Flickr)

Scores of bloggers and social media users, joined by vendors and various organizations, gathered from Nov. 5-8 in Hong Kong’s Henry Leong Community Center for Blogfest.asia, arguably the first gathering of bloggers from across Asia.

Participants came from a good number of countries and territories: Vietnam, Taiwan, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, China, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.