The Akashic Field Chronicle

Finally got to see the Manila Ocean Park during a short vacation in the Philippines.

Philippine presidential elections (sans absentee voters) are coming up in just 3 days. As a grad student in a foreign country, I’m essentially isolated from the bickering, mocking and overall foul-play that I’ve long associated with Philippine politics. I find that most of my exposure to the upcoming elections has actually been through online publications (blogs, candidate websites, politicalarena.com) and social media (twitter, facebook). Even Filipinos here (who weirdly enough, call themselves Pilipinos), don’t even bother to discuss it, except occasionally to express their disillusionment.

The main problem with social media, and other online sources of information is of course representation. The views expressed in all these posts, status messages, tweets, (avatar ribbons?), are inherently colored by the type of people with access to these services. Sadly, this is not at all representative of the true opinions of the people (Oh, democracy!). The majority of the people (again, oh democracy) do not have access or have minimal influence over opinions expressed on the Internet.

I loathe the use of polls to gauge the general trend in the Nation’s opinion, more so their  blatant use to influence that opinion. Still, polls have the advantage of better representation. Some of them at least. The thing that pisses me off when looking at the surveys is not so much who’s leading (that’s gonna be manipulated for sure), but who’s just trailing behind. WTH?! Erap!

Erap, Pare, Pera, RAPE!

Because that’s what this is, rape of the Filipino dignity. The first time I discussed our upcoming elections to an Egyptian in my lab, he said: “Oh, the Philippines, didn’t you kick out your last president because of corruption”. Yeah! Proud to be Pinoy! Just try to hush the fact that this guy is not only running again (after being in jail), but is consistently in the Top 3 in the polls. Try explaining how that works to a foreigner. Trust me, it doesn’t sound good at all.

Another presidential candidate said it best:

Diba kinonvict nyo yan … Kakahiya naman tayo! Number 3 pa sa survey…

-Richard Gordon

You might be inclined to think that these are just surveys, and not an accurate study. I agree. Erap’s strength however, isn’t just in the surveys. My father gets to travel a lot in the countryside (he works in the agriculture sector, which is mostly in the countryside). He confirms that Erap support is pretty strong in the countryside. Do you read that in blogs? Do you see that in Facebook? Of course not.

Lord of Chaos

In the first place, why was Erap allowed to run? I mean, if he wins, wouldn’t it be People Power all over again? Edsa X or something. I lost count, seriously. I think, therein lies the genius of it all. If you ask me, the administration is playing Lord of Chaos here (pardon the Wheel of Time reference). It is always in their favor (and of course, our disfavor) to wreak havoc and chaos in the political arena. Their main motivation is to confuse, to disunite, and in general prevent the Filipino people from rallying towards someone with at least a glimmer of ability to actually lead us out of our situation. Erap is essentially a win-win situation:

• Break the votes - even if Erap loses (oh please Lord), he will still claim a huge chunk of the voting population. Win # 1 for the Lord of Chaos.
• Post-victory confusion – if Erap wins, then the country will again be in turmoil. Just as it was when GMA seized power. They’ve done it before, they can do it again. Win # 2 for the Lord of Chaos.

It just saddens me, and I believe any Filipino who still has hope for this country, to see how manipulative our political leaders have become. Even going as far as risking National chaos, just to ensure the preservation of their power.

What’s my point?

There is no point. If there is, it’s not a point that matters that much in this medium. As I’ve already pointed out, the Internet audience isn’t exactly the type of people who will vote for Erap. The ones that would, probably have marginal presence in the blogosphere. They might not have any concept of a Wall besides the one in their backyard, or have access to any of the things we take for granted nowadays. What this is, is a rant, and nothing more. I just had to get it off my back. So there. Please pray for our Nation. I hate to admit it, but we badly need it.

edit: Eventually turned out that the polls were quite accurate. Erap is ranked #2. So, win #1 for the Lord of Chaos.

Just got home from WordCamp Philippines 2008, held at the College of St. Benilde earlier today. This whole day event was so much fun! Aside from that, it’s sort of a little historical too, being the very first WordCamp in South East Asia. For those not familliar with it, WordCamps are basically venues where WordPress users and developers hailing from a somewhat relatively small geographical region (say a country like the Philippines) can gather and talk about this outstanding piece of software.

The Event

Besides being fun, the whole thing was a really great learning experience. Matt Mullenweg, the creator of the WordPress platform was there for a short talk about the state of WordPress and some Q&A towards the end. He had a really really light character and seemed to be a very approachable guy. I really should go to more of these kinds of gatherings. It’s definitely a great way of enriching and cultivating my inner geek. Ooops, maybe I should edit that out, because I don’t think I have an “inner” geek. I’m probably geek inside-out. Haha. So much to learn today and I’m really glad that Wilson told me to register for WordCamp in the first place. Funny thing though, Wil doesn’t even have his own blog (yet).

Stuff I Learned

It won’t be like me at all if I didn’t take the opportunity to share with you folks some of the things I learned (and as I said, there’s a lot). There so much stuff that I can’t even figure out how to put it all in this post. So, to save up on time, I’ll just pile them up in a bulleted list:

• Indonesians Rock – apparently, the second most used language in WordPress, after English, is Indonesian. Cool.
• WordPress is so much more - I already knew that, but seeing companies using WordPress for corporate sites is simply amazing. You can’t even tell that some of the websites are made with wordpress. Like this one.
• Tons of SEO plugins - a really hot topic in today’s WordCamp was Search Engine Optimization. Just do a google search on WordPress Plugins for SEO to streamline your blog for search engines.
• WordPress is actually very profitable – a lot of people think that there’s no money in Open Source. I guess this just proves how wrong they are. Just the licensing of Akismet alone is already a lot of money.
• Some folks really take blogging seriously – I wasn’t really familiar with the concept of Pro-Blogging, but it seems, some folks earn decent (or maybe indecent) amounts of money off of their blogs. Wow. I’d be satisfied if I could just earn enough to pay for my webhost and domain.
• Custom Fields for CMS – using WordPress to manage web content becomes really easy by using custom fields in your post. You could attach additional content to a post such as a logo, an audio file, an excerpt to sort of customize the way each post will be presented. This is especially useful if you want to use WordPress to build a website other than a blog.
• A whole lot more - which I’ll just share when I get to apply them.

Photos

Here are some pics from the event:

Matt, Wilson and Me

Matt, Wilson and Me Again

My Sister with Free Chowking Food

Freebies Galore

For absolutely 0 pesos, I got the folloing:

• A cool mug from NuffNang.com
• A small cloth bag with the WordCamp Philippines Logo
• Chowking Lunch
• Two wordpress stickers (round and square) which I now proudly sport on my laptop
• Free blog advertising (care of wilson)

For a little bit more, I got:

• A really really cool shirt which I showed in this post. According to Matt, it’s one of the best designs he has seen so far from any WordCamp.

I can’t wait for the next one!