Blogging 101

I was both surprised and more than a bit nonplussed to receive in the past few weeks more than a few e-mails from readers of this blog asking for some advice and pointers on how to start their own blogs or improve the blogs they have already started.  These requests while flattering to say the least have also forced me to reexamine and reflect once more on the reason or reasons why I continue to blog after more than six years and almost 360 published posts.

If someone wants to start a blog and has dreams of finding the right mix of design, subject matter and content that would boost readership and page views, a magic combination that would make that blog immensely popular online for the ultimate purpose, say, of eventually monetizing it then I am probably the last person to seek advice from.  There are plenty of examples of such well known and commercially successful blogs to be found in the blogosphere that a neophyte blogger can seek and get guidance and inspiration from.

The truth is I blog for the plain and selfish reason that I find personal fulfillment in doing it.  My blog posts all trace their origins from events and situations in my daily life that provoke in me a great emotional response or some degree of intellectual interest and fascination. The motivation for this particular blog remains the same as when I started it in 2006 - to chronicle to the best of my abilities the unique qualities, peculiarities and eccentricities of life here in Lianga and what life, at least in my own personal view, is really like in this little corner of the world.

Who's Bullying Who

The Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 or Republic Act No 10175 which was just recently signed into law by President Noynoy Aquino is now causing a growing storm of controversy both on cyberspace and outside it, the breadth and ferocity of which certainly caught the government by surprise.  The fact that Malacañang had been forced to speak up in response to the multiple legal challenges already filed against the new law in the Supreme Court and  the rising clamor from many sectors of Philippine society for certain portions of that particular law (specifically those dealing with criminal penalties for online libel) to be either removed or amended only proves, in my view, how cavalier and hasty if not capricious it had been in allowing this new edict to become law without really thoroughly studying its legal and moral ramifications beforehand.

Senator Francis Escudero, in a recent media interview, made the staggering admission that he and many of his colleagues in the Senate had failed to take notice that the provisions on online libel contained in the then proposed bill may be legally, if not also morally, questionable when they approved it.  He has promised to look for ways to amend or "tweak" the new law specifically to decriminalize the libel aspect of it although the civil liability portion may be retained.  Senator Alan Peter Cayetano also plans to file a similar bill in the Senate that would address the same issue.

How such presumably astute legal minds could not have seen the defects in this law when it was reported out by the congressional committee that studied it and when the same was discussed in the bicameral conference committee that hammered the final version of the bill that became the law is a fact that simply strikes me as beyond belief.  It appears now that only Senator Teofisto Guingona, who filed the only dissenting vote in the final voting for the bill in the Senate and who now is one of the parties formally questioning provisions of the new law in the Supreme Court, may have been the only prescient one who was able to recognize the then proposed law as legally objectionable at that time.

Look Back

My average day in Lianga nowadays starts with a routine so familiar that I often go through it it with nary a conscious thought as if I am on autopilot or cruise control.

As I get out of bed at about six in the morning, one hand immediately reaches out to flick on a switch on a power strip fixed to the wall on the right side of the headboard of my bed.  This turns on an internet modem and a WiFi router.  Then I grab my trusty Samsung tablet on a side table and, while still in pajamas, is quickly out of the bedroom and off to the kitchen to brew a cup of  hot coffee (sugar free but most certainly not decaf).

Then in the lanai of the house facing the sea and the slowly brightening horizon beyond the expanse of Lianga Bay and the blue-green waters of the Pacific Ocean, I would sit hunched over an old wooden table that used to belong to my paternal grandfather, steaming mug within easy reach, and leisurely checking my email inbox plus the day's latest news online while the sunrise of the new day breaks out in front of me.  A video call or two may occasionally interrupt my web trolling then it's on to Facebook for messages and updates from friends.

I am sure, the breathtaking sunrise vista taken aside, this routine is not exactly uncommon for a lot of people even here in the Philippines and more so elsewhere in the civilized world.  What makes it notable in my case in Lianga is that just six years ago, it could have been only not possible but the kind of stuff a local tech junkie of that time could have only dreamed about.

Mail Call

It has been some time since I posted on this blog and for that lapse I must apologize. I have been having trouble with my internet connection for some time now and trying desperately to remain regularly online while your network connectivity is constantly giving up on you can wreck havoc on one's appetite for blogging.

Smart Bro, the wireless broadband service affiliated with Smart Communications, has been the only ISP in Lianga since it introduced the brand some 5 years ago. As expected, this virtual monopoly and the lack of any competition has led to such a deterioration in the quality of its online service that it has earned it the unflattering moniker of "Smart Broken" among frustrated local customers and subscribers.

It had come to the point when I was practically on the phone talking to their customer service representatives almost on a daily basis complaining about intermittent connectivity, cripplingly slow connections and network disruptions. Yet for all the company CSR's profuse apologies and promises of "network upgrades" and faster service, nothing really changed.

In the end, I had the service disconnected for a while and only recently have I decided to try using it again. Hope does spring eternal in the human breast and I am hoping against hope that, by a miracle of miracles, Smart Bro does finally manage to do justice to my newly restored optimism, misguided and naive though it may be.

Cyber Hooked

While in Manila last month, I had the opportunity to help friends set up an internet cafe business of their own. It was a new business venture and a specially stressful process for them since none in the family, except for a son who is an IT graduate, was in any way familiar with the cafe business or particularly computer savvy.

I, myself, am no computer geek but I have a basic working knowledge of computer hardware and software which came in handy when I found myself immersed, for the first time, in the onerous task of getting a bunch of newly assembled PC's loaded with the proper software and making sure that they were ready to hum and communicate faultlessly together as a network. The work became a unique learning process for me.

The whole experience also taught me a lot of the minutiae and details that go into putting up a new computer rental and internet cafe business and has made me appreciate the difficulties and obstacles inherent in starting a enterprise of that nature. I emphasize this point because the internet cafe is a hideously complex undertaking for someone who may not be knowledgeable or familiar with the workings of modern information technology.

Woe, therefore, to the unfortunate individual who jumps into that kind of business undertaking without doing the proper research or getting the necessary necessary advice from experts. Such an ill-advised move can quickly end up a very costly mistake.

Christmas Greetings

All week long I have been getting Christmas greetings from readers of this blog based outside the country and sent through this blog's comments section and via e-mail. Well, in truth, the greetings are not just for me but also for their family, relatives and friends in Lianga they have left behind and who they so dearly miss during this Yuletide season.

I know, because I belong to a family with some of its members now living abroad, how difficult it is to properly and meaningfully celebrate Christmas when your own home echoes with the memories of loved ones forced by circumstance and the vagaries of fate to live and work so far away from the family hearth. For us, as for many millions of other Filipino families, Christmas, nowadays, is never complete, the festivities never emotionally or sentimentally gratifying as it once was because of those whose accustomed places at the Noche Buena table must remain sadly and poignantly vacant.

If it is hard for us here who have been left behind, it must be harder still for those who have to celebrate this Christmas in cold, distant and faraway lands bereft of the emotional comfort and support of their families and friends. Theirs is the harsh and unforgiving loneliness, the crushing homesickness and desperate longing for the soothing familiarity of the familiar sights, sounds and smells of their own land, borne with extraordinary fortitude and perseverance by the victims of the Filipino diaspora that is the sad reality of our times.

In many ways, this blog was written for them and their kind.

So, in behalf of the people of Lianga, I wish all of her children scattered all over this country and elsewhere all over the world, a very Merry Christmas and the blessings of a more bountiful, prosperous New Year to come. I wish all of you good health, financial success and the fulfillment of all of those dreams for which you all have sacrificed so much for by going so far away.

I would also like to wish the best of this merry season to the many kindred souls who continue to blog and make noise about Lianga and its part of the world on the blogosphere and the Internet. You know who you are and you have done a wonderful job so far. Keep up the good work.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Other Voices

When I started blogging over two years ago, I had then the gall to feel rather special in the blogosphere thinking I was the only one from the Lianga area writing about life and living there on the Internet. I should have been slapped in the face for even entertaining such a presumptuous thought.

The truth is, there are many other voices in cyberspace speaking for and about Lianga and its environs. Many of them were even doing so already even before I even contemplated taking my first tentative and hesitant steps into the world of Internet blogging. They may not have been techno geeks or cyber-savvy in any way but they were nevertheless pioneers who took advantage of the fact that the World Wide Web had come to Lianga and just used it the best way they could.

Most of them use social networking sites like Friendster, Multiply and Facebook to meet new contacts, exchange pictures and information or simply to maintain a tangible link with friends and relatives living or working far from home. But they also tell stories of what is happening at home, the minutiae of what is going on in the community and in their lives.

Others even blog a bit on the same websites, sharing their problems and joys, posting pictures of themselves and the members of their families together with maybe a poem, song or two. But whatever they did,and what they posted on the Net was always touched and flavored by the Lianga that they all knew and which was so much a part of their lives.