Pinoy Passenger

I will always be in awe of the generation of today. Young entrepreneurs becoming NETpreneurs, young professionals adopting new skills to become net-savvy, even kids learning to practise wise buying through thrift online shopping.

Now that more and more of the youth are getting into the online sphere, who wouldn’t want to attend a free tech gathering like the WordCamp Philippines 2008? I read about this from Joni’s blog, a good friend of mine. And I found out this event is initiated by our dear Mindanao bloggers. Wow.

I must admit I got freakin’ excited to register because a segment of the camp will be talking about Wordpress and SEO. I’ve been asked to blog about the advantage of Wordpress in terms of SEO, and this WordCamp will definitely equip me

WordCamp Philippines 2008 is brought to you by the following sponsors (link away, baby!)

• i.PH: the Domain for Individuals
• Free Online Flash Games
• Wazzup Manila Philippines
• Real Estate CRM
• Real Estate Website Designers
• Orange County Real Estate
• Auto Insurance Quotes
• Lane Systems Inc.
• RedMedia
• Orange County Business Lawyer

PS: Just now I received news from News Central at Channel 23 that there is a competition threat against Google. Rebel Google Engineers will be launching a new search engine named “Cuil“. According to the news, it has a sleek interface (well, you can see that as you visit www.cuil.com), and that the search engine can detect the concepts behind every page, and the concepts behind every search. No definite details are reported about this, though. I wonder, how will the SEO’s face this challenge. I’ve tried the engine myself, and it swells!

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PDA Little Dreamer from Cavite (and my cousin!!!), Maria Cristina Angela de Leon won the Outstanding Little Dreamer award last night in their third Gala Night. Singing Leah Navarro’s piece: Isang Mundo, Isang Awit, Cris or TinTin as we fondly call her, made a remarkable rendition of the song. Until now, i still could not get where she’s getting that powerful high-pitched voice of hers.

Given that tiny frame, she’s hitting the high octaves correctly. Nice voice quality (as told by the judges - and not just because she’s my cousin hehe!). What I like about her voice is that it’s really the sound of a child - not pretentious or trying-hard, or anything of that sort. Kids should be singing these kinds of songs… not those of the sensual love song ones, or those super ka-cheapan chants as popularized by afternoon variety shows. Yuck!

Here: Watch how she sang the piece:

(sorry I can’t embed the video.. it’s not on Youtube kse…

I am tempted to launch a SEO Contest for the keyword: PDA Little Dreamer Winner - and all entries should be about Cristina de Leon! Hahaha! Biased talaga.

Anyways, you can cast your vote for the Little Dreamer Winner. Please vote for Cris! Why?

1. Talent, and not popularity. She’s got the talent really.

2. Determination - she used to be a shy kid, only plays with a couple of cousins her age in the family. But look at her now - how she has transformed.

3. Hope for their family’s future - Cris’ family struggles financially, with 3 more little siblings (1 an infant), and only has my uncle to provide for their needs. Winning the PDA Little Dreamer award would really be a great great help for them.

So vote now! http://www.celebritypeeps.com/cristina-pda-2-little-dreamer/

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Did you know that the Asia Pacific Region is fast becoming the largest Internet ad spender? Surprisingly, countries like Japan, China, and Singapore are all experience an online boom, as they call it. This was announced at the Singapore ad:tech conference with speakers coming from distinguished companies like Google, and Yahoo. In fact, Singapore is one of the “fertile lands” to do business in Asia.

Here is an excerpt of the news report:

Online ad spend is expected to increase in tandem with the growth of traditional media forms like television and newspapers, said media group WPP Digital’s chief executive Mark Read in his keynote address.

The conference, previously held in nine other cities, was brought to Singapore this year because “a lot of regional ad buying comes from Singapore,” said Paul Beckley, spokesman for organizer dmg world media.

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A former co-worker and fellow SEM Specialist posted this link on SEO Philippines. It was just both funny and amazing actually to see an American seeing a purely Tagalog song… a rock-OPM at that.

Since June is the month of Philippine Independence, I’d like to share how this foreign buddy loved to sing and play a Filipino song… Buloy! Haha! In fairness, nasa tono siya ha.

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Riding along with the Philippine national flag bandwagon, just to recall - the longest trail of Philippine flag holders was witnessed here in my hometown Cavite, from Imus to Dasmarinas last June 1st. It is known as the First Wagayway Festival.

I was not exactly compelled to blog about it because the event simply brought me heavy traffic when I was on my way to pay my bills at SM Dasmarinas. But I was taken aback by Joey Velasco’s painting “Heal Our Land”. It was just so moving and meaningful to see Christ praying with our Philippine flag on his arms.

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It is just right that I blog about the new fare increase here at Pinoypassenger.com. Recently (or was it yesterday), the LTFRB has increased the fare by P 0.50 for public utility vehicles. That makes P 8.00 as the official minimum transportation fare.

At a news report from GMA News, it was stated that the LTFRB will not be releasing copies of the new matrix since this is just a provisional fare increase. So for all us pinoy passengers, we can’t demand that photocopied fare matrix to be posted in the jeepney walls.

It was in 2003 since the last fare increase, when diesel would cost P 26.00/liter. Now it’s P42.00. I am not really familiar with the implications of oil regulation. But I think regulating the oil industry in the country by the government isn’t an attractive idea for oil companies, since they will have to measure up to the price ceiling imposed by the government in that case. If that happens, oil suppliers will shy away from doing business here, thus less tax collection for the government.

Right now, I really feel for the eco-friendly oil that we can locally produce like the Bio fuel. It can be sourced from the Jatropha plant and Palm trees. It is eco-friendly as it reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

From the Modern Energy Corporation, it says there

“If half of the Mindanao land were planted in jatropha plants and palm trees, in several years, after they mature, the company potentially could produce over US$200 million worth of palm and jatropha oil annually with current prices for palm and jatropha oil of US$400 per ton.”

I heard there’s also a vehicle that can now be run using electricity. You just have to charge your jeep. Hehe!

Well with these innovative ways to conserve a non-renewable resource, which is oil, I think the government and other private sectors should start taking these promising innovations seriously, so we won’t have to bear with monster fare prices.

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Iron Man - It was Wednesday of last week when my boyfriend and I watched Iron Man. I thought it was gonna be another “for-boys-only-sort-of action-film”, but I was enticed the moment I saw Robert Downey, Jr. on the screen (super crush: Ally McBeal days). And when I got engaged to the whole eye-opener story…

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Doing a Google search for the long-tail search query: How many Internet users are there in the Philippines?, the internetworldstats.com site came up number 3 in the list of Google results.

According to that site, we have:

14,000,000 Internet users as of April 2007, - that is 16.0% of the population, according to Yahoo.

I was inspired to write this post when I read about Facebook’s initiative to create language translation in its widely popular social networking site. Pinoys are known for being good suckers of social network sites. In fact, many believe that Friendster’s huge success can be partly attributed to the average Pinoy - the type who loves displaying his/her pics (and inviting friends online to come take a peek to his/her latest adventure). I mean you gotta admit it, don’t you love displaying your cute little bikini when you went to Boracay?

Anyway, Facebook is a growing social network in the Philippines. Due to its large base of patrons, it has gotten ways of monetizing the site - like ad postings, events, etc. Now it is busy cooking up a new initiative - language translation.

Imagine if we can all share applications in Tagalog. How would those stupid quizzes, and 2-minute tests sound? Something like: “Meron kang 1 Anong Klaseng Bulaklak ka na pagsusuri!” How outrageous! But I think it’ll be fun

How would this Facebook language translation affect the common Filipino?

1. It will open doors for a larger audience - pati ang mga nagno-nosebleed sa English

2. It will keep a lot of employees busy checking out the latest quiz in “Filipino” - as if we’re not sneaking during office hours haha!

3. There’ll be a lot of opportunities for local entrepreneurs to advertise on Facebook - Imagine if tagalog searches will finally return results for you

Social networking has taken a step higher than the normal picture sharing, and friend invitations. It has become a rich melting pot of varied cultures, experiences, and opportunities for everyone living in the planet. With Facebook’s latest initiative, it can encourage Pinoys to make use of more opportunities presented to them online. We can have smarter, and better equipped Internet users in the Philippines by then.

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There is a question on the usage of the word “shortage” in the latest national issue battling the Philippines. Does the “shortage” in rice really exist? Maybe it does, but it doesn’t necessarily mean the significant decrease in the farmer’s yield.

I bet you’re thinking what I’m thinking – rice hoarding. As per Secretary Arthur Yap, there is really no significant shortage of rice in terms of yield of the Philippine’s staple food. There is just a dangerous sector called the “hoarding businessmen”, who in the desire to profit, stocks rice supplies intended for the table of Filipino families. Who’s that Chinese again who bought NFA rice, then re-packed it to sell high in the market? Very business-minded indeed (and very selfish too!)

Although it’s a known fact that more rice fields are being converted to residential and commercial areas, as compared to the early years. That is why the government is targeting 98% rice sufficiency in 2010. I strongly feel they should include the abolish of graft and corruption in the agriculture/trade and industry sectors too. Regardless of the hectares of rice you have, hoarding will still do its dirty work unless you act on it.

Anyway, just to lighten up things, here’s a quick to-do-list for Filipinos to conserve rice in the looming rice “shortage” era of the country:

• If you’re among the weight-conscious girls out there (but actually loves pigging out), order half rice instead of whole. Carbo can really grow your belly.

• Don’t order a cup of rice or more if you can’t finish it all when eating in restaurants. The Department of Agriculture (DA) is now urging food chains to offer a half cup of rice to their patrons.

• Try eating bread, or pasta. It’s a new variation of your usual rice meal.

• Singangag! I love it! Don’t throw away last night’s dinner rice left over. Saute garlic, butter/margarine, and left over hotdogs, corned beef, tapa meat, then mix with left over rice. Good breakfast meal.

• Don’t fill the entire rice cooker with bigas if it can’t be consumed completely. Just cook the right amount of rice appropriate for the size of the whole family.

• Last: share the rice you can’t finish with your boyfriend. He’ll appreciate it (men are better rice eaters than women).

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In 5 Filipino families, how many do you think have relatives abroad? Relatives included in the pool of our overseas Filipino workers, or OFWs? I bet more than half of that number would raise their hands.

Just some quick stats about the Overseas Filipino Worker:

• There are more than 11 million overseas Filipinos worldwide. That makes up 11% of our total population.
• Filipinos are mostly deployed in the Middle East. This region contributes to a 68% share of deployment among all regions in the world.
• OFWs are mostly females. 59% as compared to 40.74% males.
• Majority of our OFWs are in the service-sector
• Filipinos were expected to send back $14.7 billion in remittances to the Philippines in 2007.

In one of my History classes in UP, we argued over the claim that our OFWs are the modern day heroes. As my professor once noted, they aren’t there because of a deliberate decision to make the Philippines more progressive. They made the decision to work abroad with their own families in mind. It is still a one-on-his-own survival tactic. So do you see any trace of heroism in there? I used to believe there is none.

I’ve been proven wrong. I realized I had quite a narrow view of things. When my cousin was finally admitted to a college study program that ensures employment after, I knew my relatives abroad were the culprit.

Our OFWs could have left us in the hope of providing a better tomorrow for their families. But in a larger scale, their contribution is way more than that.

Every time a Filipino youth is able to finish his or her education, every time the young generation gets a better chance to earn money whether via employment or entrepreneurship, the tiny ray of hope for the land becomes brighter.

Imagine how one graduate student who is able to find a source of living is a good minus in the number of ‘tambays’, ‘potential criminals (i.e. poverty-related crimes)’, etc. There is a better chance that the hopeful youth brings to heart the mission to help his/her siblings or anyone to finish school, as well. Remember that pass it forward mentality? How great the Philippines could be if we take it upon ourselves to help one another to move forward.

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