2005 Philippine Blogging in Review

2005 is the year of the Philippine blogs. Let’s review what happened this year, shall we?

• March 15, 2005 – Manila Bulletin adds Blog-O-Rama section featuring Filipino blogs as interviewed by Annlyn Jusay.
• April 4, 2005 – the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism launched its blog.
• May 7, 2005 – iBlog, the 1st Philippine Blogging Summit was hosted by the UP College of Law, UP-ISP headed by JJ Disini.
• June 12, 2005 – Gloriagate & Hello Garci scandal was exposed on the PCIJ blog with full recordings made available for download.
• June 17, 2005 – the Sun Star Chronicles launched the Citizen Watch blog to take a closer look at Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo during the heat of the “Hello garci” scandal.
• July 5, 2005 – Connie Veneracion (The Sassy Lawyer) became the first blogger-turned-columnist in the Philippine blogosphere. She now writes for Manila Standard Today.
• July 15, 2005 – the Pinoy Top Blogs project was launched revealing the popular blogs in Philippine blogosphere.
• August 4, 2005 – iBlog Mini – Blogging Gloriagate was hosted by UP College of Law, UP-ISP.
• August 4, 2005 – The Philippines According to Blogs turned 1 year with over 2,000 aggregated pinoy blogs.
• October 22, 2005 – Journalist as Bloggers Conference at the Linden Suites, Ortigas was heavily attended by journalist-bloggers and would-be bloggers alike. (sponsored by PCIJ)
• November 4, 2005 – the PCIJ was slapped with a TRO to remove a certain post from its blog about Michael Defensor.
• November 14, 2005 – big time blog network Pajamas Media launches with $3.5PHP 205INR 297EUR 3CNY 25 Million in venture capital. Manuel L. Quezon III is among their top bloggers.
• November 18, 2005 – Market Man runs after Inq7.net for blog plagiarism.
• November 22, 2005 – Microwarehouse sponsors podcast session for 12 channels which included Jessica Zafra and Danton Remoto.
• December 15, 2005 – first fan blog (Retzwerx) to be featured on ABS-CBN (only to be cancelled later).

A lot of other things happened though I can’t trace the dates. A lot of prominent people got into blogging as well, led by a pack of journalists like Ricky Carandang, RG Cruz, Ellen Tordesillas, Carol Arguilles, Tina Panganiban-Perez, Howie Severino & Bing Guanzon. Jessica Zafra joined the fray and Dean Jorge Bacobo went back to blogging as well.

If you know of any other blogworthy additions, please leave a comment.