Philippine pride is alive and well on the internet (Happy Independence Day!)
It’s the 111th Philippine Independence Day today, meaning there’s no better day to take pride in our heritage as a nation. If you’ve been keeping tabs on online Pinoy culture, however, you’ll notice how we don’t need to wait for June 12th come around to celebrate all the things that define who are as a people, big and small.
Let’s start with our lovely flag, the elements of which has inspired clothing lines, magazine covers, and every Pinoy-centric campaign you can think of.
Of course it does help with big companies like Google and Yahoo! join in the festivities too.
Speaking of festivities—food! Lechon, balut, isaw, taho, mangoes, bananas, rice, or the biscuits called Filipinos, our love for our delicacies is found around the world, websites included.
June 12th is also a time to remember how our heroes, from Rizal to Ninoy, fought and died for our country. Apart from reverence, there seems to be a different kind of fascination with our ancient elders. There’s a LOLcat version of Mi Ultimo Adios and a series of Noli/Fili meets the Katipuneros and Propagandistas here and here, Facebook-style.
That’s not the only kind of nostalgia we Filipinos enjoy on the Web. We can watch all the retro TV commercials and telenovelas on demand. And if that isn’t your thing, we’ve got present-day stars to watch too: Charice Pempengco, Manny Pacquiao, Arnel Pineda, Christine Gambito, the Philippine All-Stars, the Cebu inmates, Apl.de.ap, Nicole Scherzinger, Batista, and more.
Finally, perhaps the most important part of the Philippine revolution online are the different causes and movements to better our nation. From reactions to controversies like the De la Paz-Pangandaman golf incident and the Great Book Blockade of 2009, to politically-motivated initiatives like No to Con-Ass, to grassroots sites like Ako Mismo and One Tama.
Happy Independence Day, everyone!
2.3 Million Filipino Bloggers
Here’s a list of Philippine internet and blogging usage by the numbers, according to the Wave.3 Social Media Tracker (PDF file, 25.66 MB) by Universal McCann, a New York media agency.
- 14 million use the internet (15.4% penetration rate as of April 2007)
- 3.7 million actively use the internet (as of March 2008)
Out of the 3.7 million active users (between 16 to 54 years old):
- 3.6 million / 98.6% : watch videos
- 3.3 million / 90.3% : read blogs
- 3.1 million / 86.4% : post pictures
- 3.0 million / 83.1% : create profiles on social networks
- 2.3 million / 65.8% : have a blog
- 2.2 million / 60.5% : upload videos
- 2.2 million / 61.8% : listen to podcasts
- 1.6 million / 45.2% : subscribe to feeds
(Note: some figures were rounded down or roughly calculated to complete the number-and-percentage pairings.)
It’s interesting to see that podcasts are actually more popular than feeds even though they’re usually powered by syndication technologies.
(Via 100% Batangueno)
