The Philippine Online Chronicles

In a largely low-tech Filipino universe, it must be difficult to relate to the spat between Google and China, and find where the Filipino stand amidst the transformational change and challenges that are driven by the Internet and how it fits to the election of 2010. The scope and scale is a pressing matter where democracy in the Philippines is, where technology is and how social media can make history, and how all three, intersect.

To comprehend, you must understand that the Internet has magnified the power of every network and of every discipline and every person across the planet. Even politics.

Suddenly, text, audio and video, where once distinct and separate now find themselves side by side. Thus, the last eighteen months has seen a massive explosion of communication in recent memory. It rides upon the most monumental, most innovative, most game changing invention in human history to date: the Internet. This massive, sprawling network of computers and devices spanning the entire world has enabled the bar of entry to drop so low that ordinary people from all nations in the world have now, more than ever, the ability to be heard and to be heard clearly.

In 2009, we saw how World Governments reacted to how transformative the Internet is as a powerful communications platform. We saw how online protest gave us a taste of victory in the Great Book Blockade of 2009. While our mass media took a blind eye, and while our nation slept, tweets sent from the Batasan Pambansa ensured that to railroad charter change will not be the quiet theft in the night that they would have hoped.

The world watched as the first popular cyberwar erupted. Iranians made their voice heard amidst an oppressive regime through twitter, and we loaned servers and proxies and passed along their tweets to ensure that they could be heard.

We saw the outpouring of grief from Michael Jackson’s fans and when Cory Aquino returned to her maker, we remembered yellow, we remembered Cory.

In the Philippines, quite recently, the lower house approved ‘oppressive’ cybercrime prevention act. In itself nothing evil, because it focuses on protecting our women and children from exploitation online, but without defining rights and privileges first, this law is open to all sort of interpretation and abuse.

The power of connectivity is a phenomenon that had caught governments unaware. It is a phenomenon that caught everyone by surprise. How can it not when the Internet is How Anarchy works?

Slowly this medium is being leveraged. Nick Perlas was reinstated by virtue of his Internet campaign. Gibo Teodoro has a following online. Noynoy Aquino has his official blog and presence across social media. Blogwatch and Filipino Voices and many blogs across the planet are talking about Filipino Politics.

Thought clearly, as there are opportunities, there are threats most especially in the Philippines where the law is not defined and where what laws exist may be perverted. That isn’t to say that it isn’t the challenge of democracy everywhere that we must fight tooth and nail for the ethos that we believe in from the question of Network Neutrality to questions on privacy, to questions of equal access to question of, do we create walls on the Internet.

Take for example, telecommunication companies around the world. They have built the “pipes” where our data travel is seeking to change the very principle of the Internet. On the Internet, my voice, your voice and the voice of Google are treated equally.

Think of the Internet as a highway. The telecom companies built the road.

If you and I are cars and Google is a car, we all drive on the same road. Google isn’t given special preference when it hits the road. It doesn’t sweep you or I aside and say, this is Google, and we are coming through! You and I don’t get special treatment either. My data is no more important than yours or Google’s.

Now what the telecom companies all over the world naturally want is to create special, fast lanes where they get to charge content. Suddenly, you got VIPs on the Internet. Their voice is louder than your because they can pay. Smaller voices are silenced. It happened to radio, and television and it can happen to the Internet.

We must guard against this. Network Neutrality must be a fundamental right of all citizens.

There is a move to ensure that the principles of Network Neutrality remain a guiding ethos of the Internet. This issue is of such great importance that Barack Obama made Network Neutrality, a campaign promise that he will ensure a Free and Open Internet.

In relation to an open and free Internet, Google and China’s recent spat highlights the difference of opinion between a closed Internet and the rest of the world. It highlights how companies have had to deal with different laws across national boarders where there shouldn’t be because there is only one Internet.

Recently, Obama’s secretary of state, Hilary Clinton announced a new US Foreign policy to push for Internet Freedom to their allies around the world. This is a push to make sure that there are no virtual walls.

That said, the Filipino must be guaranteed that our government will not be party to virtual walls.

Just as our nation must start thinking about developing a national cyberstrategy in spite of the state of our ICT, the Philippines must likewise guarantee that our rights are not trampled with. The Filipino must have Five Internet Freedoms:

· Freedom to freely access Content, sites, platform of their choice;

· Freedom to run Applications of their Choice;

· Freedom to Attach Personal Devices of their Choice;

· Freedom to have Online Privacy protected;

· Freedom to receive reliable and fast Internet that is not unreasonably degraded by other traffic as well as to receive meaningful information regarding service plans.

In her Internet Freedom speech, Secretary Clinton spoke about connectivity and walls,

“The Berlin Wall symbolized a world divided, and it defined an entire era. Today, remnants of that wall sit inside this museum- where they belong. And the new iconic infrastructure of our age is the Internet.

Instead of division, it stands for connection. But even as networks spread to nations around the globe, virtual walls are cropping up in place of visible walls.

Some countries have erected electronic barriers that prevent their people from accessing portions of the world's networks. They have expunged words, names and phrases from search engine results. They have violated the privacy of citizens who engage in non-violent political speech. These actions contravene the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, which tells us that all people have the right "to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." With the spread of these restrictive practices, a new information curtain is descending across much of the world. Beyond this partition, viral videos and blog posts are becoming the samizdat of our day.

As in the dictatorships of the past, governments are targeting independent thinkers who use these tools. In the demonstrations that followed Iran's presidential elections, grainy cell phone footage of a young woman's bloody murder provided a digital indictment of the government's brutality. We've seen reports that when Iranians living overseas posted online criticism of their nation's leaders, their family members in Iran were singled out for retribution. And despite an intense campaign of government intimidation, brave citizen journalists in Iran continue using technology to show the world and their fellow citizens what is happening in their country. In speaking out on behalf of their own human rights the Iranian people have inspired the world.

And their courage is redefining how technology is used to spread truth and expose injustice.”

Speaking of samizdat and courage, in the Philippines, there was the case of DSWD slamming a blogger with libel case for posting about ‘rotting’ relief goods. Whether or not the blogger was right or wrong, our tomorrow requires that Filipinos must have bloggers’ rights.

Where then does this leave us?

The Philippines’ infrastructure is on the more low-technology side. The penetration of broadband while on the rise leaves much to be desired of. While without a doubt the future is on the Internet, government must align priorities to ensure that every Filipino is given the opportunity to use this marvelous innovation. If that means reducing taxes on computers and broadband, then it must. If it means positioning education that drives more towards information technology, then it must.

While the country is faced with these challenges and when I say country in this instance, I mean both public and private sectors; we must ensure Internet Freedom in the Philippines. We must ensure that the fundamental right to connectivity must not be violated, especially clearly that questions on privacy like the cybercrime bill, and unreliable broadband and the potential to block access are taking center stage. It must nip in the bud.

Secretary Clinton raised a call to build tools to ensure that communication flows.

To use technologies like FrontlineSMS, which is leveraging the Internet so that democracy could reach out and guarantee elections.

To Facebook is to be heard.

To Twitter is democracy.

Yes, Internet Freedom is Freedom to Connect.

In Caprica, when the first Cylon was born, the future of humanity began with a choice. The next administration has a choice. So too we have a choice today. That is where our democracy, technology and social media intersect.

Ultimately, the guaranteeing of Internet Freedom is not about it at all. It is about what kind of country the Philippines will be in the future that says no to censorship. It is about education and how important it is, well here is the biggest education leverage there is: Internet. It is ultimately, about how we choose to participate with humanity, to share our culture and our joys with everyone. It is about embracing our darkest fears, to over come it. This is about the kind of Philippines, we envision. It is a future where we Filipinos set aside our provincial attitude, where we find ourselves intelligent and secure with our selves and proud to walk hand in hand with humanity in our shared tomorrows. Choose.

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