Progress and Tyranny
So I was invited to three parties tonight — one by PICS in Ortigas, one by b5media at the Mall of Asia, and one by PLDT Business Solutions at the Fort. You know the IT industry is booming when you have three tech parties on a Thursday night.
I’m a vice-president of PICS, so I went to our party first. As CICT Chairman Rey Chua presented his bullish outlook for the industry, someone from the prosecutor’s office kindly informed us that we all had to go home before Gloria’s new midnight curfew.
Nothing like a taste of tyranny to dull the taste of progress.
The other two parties were in other parts of the city; between the rains and the traffic and the checkpoints, I couldn’t possibly attend either and still beat the curfew. On my way home, I got stuck in traffic near the EDSA shrine, where I served as stage marshal for EDSA II.
Look what that got us. We do stupid things in our youth.
I thought I was helping to bring about revolution seven years ago. As I’ve watched more and more smart Filipinos empower themselves in a disintermediated millennium — from pioneering veterans like Janette Toral to hot superstars like Abe Olandres to promising ingenues like Alodia Gosiengfiao — I’ve come to realize that real revolutions come from ourselves, not from our leaders. Tonight, I saw the repercussions of a false revolution dampen celebrations of a real revolution. The past has a funny way of dragging down the future.
On behalf of PICS, I’d like to thank everyone who came to our party tonight despite the insane circumstances. Talking shop with you guys helped keep my mind off this stupid curfew, if only for a few hours.
Tags: Arroyo, b5media, CICT, EDSA, Fort, Mall-of-Asia, Manila, Mike Abundo, Ortigas, Philippines, PICS, PLDT, Politics, Rey-Chua
November 29, 2007 | Filed Under Philippines, Politics | 14 Commentsb5media Revamps Look
Riding the online advertising wave, b5media rolls out a new blog template to accommodate more direct advertisers. Check out the new look on two blogs I write for them, Emerging Earth and Inside Online Video.
Oh, and Google: thanks for the five-PageRank jump to Inside Online Video since I started on it last week. Now I can bash TV harder than ever.
Getting Inside Online Video
TV is dead. That’s why I’m delighted b5media Technology Channel Editor Jayvee Fernandez has given me the opportunity to spit on TV’s corpse by going Inside Online Video to chronicle the meteoritic rise of the YouTube Nation and its ideological neighbors. From the communities of YouTube and the moolah of Revver to the greed of Fox and the vanity of Justin.TV — we’re watching it all unfold, baby.
Free your mind from the grip of greedy network execs. Kill commercial caricature characters and listen to real people just like you. Turn off that TV and watch what you want to see — because what you see, becomes what you’ll be. Get inside online video.
Tags: b5media, Blogging, Jayvee-Fernandez, Video
April 22, 2007 | Filed Under Blogging, Video | 2 Comments-
About the Author
Mike Abundo serves as Vice-President for Online Services of the Philippine Internet Commerce Society. He also writes for Inside Online Video and Tech Side Up. Email him at mike@mikeabundo.com.
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