National Association of Filipino Bloggers?

I am a Filipino and a blogger.

I firmly believe that no Filipino blogger should be an island. With such belief, I am very much interested in joining a Filipino bloggers organization.

What's your take on having a national association for Filipino bloggers?

Initiatives are underway to organize Filipino bloggers into one united group, to be called (tentatively) National Bloggers Association of the Philippines.

The controversial initiative has come up with a draft manifesto of which I also want you to read.

One country, one blogging community.
A Manifesto of Filipino bloggers and netizens (Draft)
March 7, 2011

We, Filipino bloggers coming from various places nationwide and those based overseas, coming from diverse backgrounds and specialties, using various new media outlets, hereby freely come together and call for the formation of a bloggers association of the Philippines that shall unite us around these common and beneficial objectives:

• Promote and defend the right to free speech and to free expression;

• Promote and develop blogging, vlogging, photoblogging, microblogging and other online creative and expressive forms in all their diverse categories, topics and types;

• Gather and share Philippine blogging’s best practices that reflect our contributions to ourselves and our online communities, media, causes, organizations and businesses, government, the nation and the world;

• Draft and adopt a code of ethics that underscore the members’ and organization’s sense of responsibility and maturity;

• Discuss issues and concerns that confront our members; and

• Campaign and work for more affordable, reliable and better internet access in the country

The association we aspire to form is voluntary in membership, national in scope, democratic in decision-making, progressive in outlook, and both non-partisan and non-profit in legal character.

• We draw inspiration from and ask the participation of the city-wide, provincial, regional and island-wide associations, summits and conventions initiated by bloggers across the country. We also pay tribute to overseas Filipinos and their blogging organizations and events.

• We want an association that makes decisions based on democratic processes, consensus-building and mutual benefit.

A long time has passed since the first blog posts and first blogging events. We are now a bigger, stronger and influential community. Businesses, causes and government have started to organize themselves to interact and engage with us. And we also face challenges within and outside our growing community.

The Philippines, our country and people are also expecting more from us, and we bravely and fearlessly say that we want to do more and achieve more

In view of all these and more, we declare that we are joining as founding members of what we hope would be a most awesome bloggers association for our country.

And the idea that the manifesto can be improved upon brings me a lot of optimism.

It would be a source of pride if my blogging can contribute to achieving a common good. That's why I joined.

Are you a Filipino blogger? You are welcome to join us, too!


The Thinker image from Brian Hillegas' Flickr.