Sotto against a Million Bloggers in the Philippines

August 16, 2012, A lot of Bloggers at the Social Media site Twitter pours their outraged over Senator Vicente Sotto III after his interview with ANC's Headstart Karen Davila was reached the Netizens with his statement " Bakit ko naman iqu quote ang blogger? Blogger lang iyon." (Why am I going to quote a blogger? She's just a blogger.)

With the Senator statement, he obviously didn't realize the capabilities of bloggers. From wikipedia " Social networking is one of the most active web-based activities in the Philippines, with Filipinos being declared as the most active users on a number of web-based social network sites such as Friendster, Facebook, Multiply, Friendly and Twitter. The use of social networking website has become so extensive in the Philippines that the country has been tagged as "The Social Networking Capital of the World," and has also become part of Filipino cyber culture. Social networking is also used in the Philippines as a form of election campaign material, as well as tools to aid criminal investigation."

According to the internet, "A blog from the term web log is a discussion or information site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries ("posts") typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Until 2009 blogs were usually the work of a single individual, occasionally of a small group, and often were themed on a single subject. More recently "multi-author blogs" (MABs) have developed, with posts written by large numbers of authors and professionally edited. MABs from newspapers, other media outlets, universities, think tanks, interest groups and similar institutions account for an increasing proportion of blog traffic. The rise of Twitter and other "micro blogging" systems helps integrate MABs and single-author blogs into societal newstreams. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog."

In the Philippines with more or less than 100 Million in population and counting which according to some advocates are because of the lack of Reproductive Health Bill (lack of education, poverty and accessibility to hospitals, accessibility to condoms, pills and other reproductive health services and products for free among others), the country garnered more percentage in online usage, meaning, majority of the population are voters every election and the Senators statement from some bloggers was very discriminating.

From Jon Russell of Asian Correspondent.com "Asia dominates the world’s biggest social networking markets according to research from blog 24/7 Wall Street who compiled a list of countries where Facebook penetration (usage per population) is highest."

The Philippines tops the list with 93.9 percent of the nation reportedly signed up to Facebook, the full list is below with the summary from each Southeast Asian market following.

Philippines 93.9%

Israel 91%

Turkey 90.9%

Chile 90.2%

Argentina 89.2%

Malaysia 88.4%

Indonesia 87.5%

Peru 87.2%

Colombia 86.9%

Venezuela 86.2%

What is interesting is just how high Twitter usage amongst the three Southeast Asia countries while LinkedIn remains particularly low.

1. Philippines

> Facebook: 93.9%

> Twitter: 16.1%

> LinkedIn: 1.9%

> Internet Use: 29.7%

Social network penetration is incredibly high in the Philippines, reaching 95%. Facebook is the country’s most popular website, more so than Google, and has a penetration rate of 93.9%. The Philippines is also the eighth most popular country for Twitter use on a global scale, with a penetration rate of 16.1%. The popularity of photo sharing has increased by 46% in the country in one year, largely due to Facebook. Social networking is so popular among Filipinos, the country has been nicknamed “The Social Networking Capital of the World.” - Jon Russell

Discrimination against bloggers without knowing what they could do or maybe the Senator thought that bloggers are just those people who are using different Social Media tools for chatting and gossiping and it must be a wake up call to the Senator with majority of the bloggers show their sentiments by using a twitter hashtag #bloggerslangkami (we are just bloggers).

To make the story short, a blogger could be anyone, might be a doctor, architect, engineer, teacher, a government official like USEC like Manolo Quezon, Commissioner from the Bureau of Customs Ruffy Biazon, Senator Pia Cayetano or might be a computer engineer, Information Technology practitioner or the majority of the Philippine population.

Senator Sotto might be in power right now and his vote for the Reproductive Health Bill might be important but from his background as a Television host for sure never adds up to his credibility.The Filipino people elected him to be competent, reliable and fair to everyone, he must understand that as the one in a government office, it is not about him (when he said something about his child who died because of the complication which according to him was because of the pills) but about the majority of the population, rich or poor, for all Filipinos welfare.