Is 2007 the Year of the Filipino Blogger?

To continue with our earlier discussion, Joel Alarilla wrote a follow-up article in Inquirer.net – “The revolution will not be televised, but blogged“.

He asks the question and Will 2007 be the Year of the Filipino Blogger? and says “I believe so, because now we might see whole groups of Filipino bloggers achieving success here and abroad.”

I find myself agreeing with him and I’d like to elaborate on that as to why I think so. A lot large blog networks out there have at least one Filipino problogger in their roster — Know More Media, Creative Webbloging, b5media, Bloggy Network, WeblogsInc. etc.

See, when I took the position over at Blog Herald, there was quite a mix of ruckus and excitement. It was in the news (well, our news) and some people were asking me why there was so much excitement in our little part of the world about the development.

I explained that our generation (i.e. Filipinos) have become known around the globe as any of of these types of people — domestic helper, nurses, sea men, care-giver, or call center agents. In short, we’re looked down by most as cheap 3rd-world laborers. I have aunts that are working as nurses in the US for decades, uncles & cousins on a cargo ship at sea, relatives who are domestic helpers (OFW is the proper term) in Singapore & HK, older cousins who graduated as nurses but ended up as care-givers in UK and even more younger cousins who are now waiting for their Nursing Board exam results. So, a fellow Filipino taking over a top position in a pre-dominantly western niche is real news.

Several contacts I’ve talked to told me about the stigma that comes along with being from the Philippines. So no wonder that a lot of Filipino start-ups open up offices (or shell companies) in New York, San Francisco or the Silicon Valley to avoid being flagged as an Asian (or Filipino) BPO or outsourcing lest they’d be ignored and not get the credit or attention they duly deserve.

So yes, maybe the blogosphere is indeed a true equalizer where regionalistics bounds do not exist nor color of the skin or the height of the nose are excluded from the equation. Yes, we could do better in the blogging industry and hopefully we’ll show more of that this 2007.