Political treasure from the web dump
The world wide web is like a garbage dump. Itâs full of trash. Dirty laundry, too, especially when it comes to blogs. Clicking your way from link to sometimes broken link, you find yourself wondering, who cares what youâre doing right now? Still, like all proper garbage dumps, enough patience will be rewarded with treasure. And I donât mean one manâs trash kind of treasure. Real treasure, which should be what you click on and spend hours bothering with, unlike the usual trash which ought to be thrown out like a hopelessly ratty trapo. I know, searching for a good website on Philippine politics is no easy task. After all, your favourite search engine will present you with pages and pages of links to sites which may or may not be about Philippine politics, if theyâre about anything at all. My favorite result is a link that brings you to a page of someone who likes to call himself Political Pinoy. The page is blank. This is funny, but not really. On to the real websites, or at least the ones that actually have content. My personal favourite is Indolentindio.com. Apart from having a nice tongue twister of a name (say it five times, very fast, and tell me if you can pull it off without sounding like an idiot), Indolentindio.com is like a carnival. I mean this in a good way. You can spend hours perusing the entries, which are mostly clever, tongue-in-cheek, and usually of manageable length. For instance, on the recent National Artist controversy, "As the list of someoneâs critics in a Catholic third world country grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Jesus approaches 1." Of course, clever and tongue-in-cheek often results in being misunderstood by some readers, which means you can spend even more hours chuckling at the comment threads. Indolentindio is not strictly about Philippine politics. They have entries on culture, history, literature, and lists. Not to worry, because all their entries are neatly filed under different categories. If you like what you see, you can subscribe and save yourself the trouble of checking for updates, which are irregular. Now, after having satisfied your need to be entertained and informed at the same time, you may be interested in visiting Betterphilippines.com. While the tagline âblogging for a better Philippines, pointing out truths others deny or ignore" sounds a bit, well, messianic, the blog itself is actually quite down-to-earth. The entries are straightforward and simple, confident without being arrogant. The site itself is plain, no gimmicks or fancy codes. But youâre not looking for fancy codes. Lest you forget, blog entries like âPractical Suggestions to Realize a Better Philippines" will remind you. If it still isnât clear, the blurb says it all: âThis blog may just have what youâre looking for â a slap in the face, a reality check, perhaps a new perspective on our countryâs state of affairs." If anonymous authors make you uneasy, you might prefer to read ANC broadcast journalist Ricky Carandangâs blog (www.rickycarandang.com). The site is updated more or less weekly, and traffic is pretty heavy, with up to a hundred comments on a single entry. Of course, like most comment threads that go over ten comments, the bulk are from people with nothing better to do than argue with the author, and the other readers. Soon enough the comment thread begins to read like an argument on the street, complete with insults and name-calling. Case in point: In his entry "Let Them Eat Cake" Carandang writes, âIf you really want to stick it to the Filipino people, try the Cornish lamb. It's to die for and it will probably cost the same as a kidney sold illegally by those poor bastards who have no jobs and 13 kids living down by the river from Malacanang." A lively discussion in the comment thread ensues, thanks in particular to one reader who begins the verbal sparring with âI saw you at Serendra, but you were not with 13 kids living down by the river from Malacanang." Iâm not saying that this sort of activity is a bad thing. Iâll take an article that gets a reaction, positive or otherwise, over one thatâs safe and all fluff. After all, it makes you think. This brings us to the next blog you should be visiting. Prof. Luis Teodoro, former dean of the University of the Philippines College of Mass Communication has his current and archived writings on the web. Based on comment threads, which arenât very long, it would seem that the traffic here is not very heavy. The site meter reports an average of sixteen visits per day, which is way too low for the wonderfully written pieces that can be found here. Where is everyone?