The Philippine Online Chronicles

Senate Resolution 53

Recently, Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan filed Resolution 53, calling for the "live streaming" or broadcasting live over the internet of Senate proceedings. Usually, when there’s a big political brouhaha going on, you’ll be lucky to find coverage in the ABSCBN News Channel (ANC), that is, if you have cable. Usually, we just see snippets of the issue discussed in Congress through the primetime news and late night news programs available to the public. Usually, since there’s so little air time allocated, people misunderstand the meat of the issue, which can be dangerous.

I personally think that this is a good way to ensure transparency and accountability among our legislators and to expose the public, especially the youth, in dealings of Congress. It’s also a way to connect to those who are overseas. I have to congratulate him for championing measures of good governance through this resolution.

As stated in the text of the resolution, It is nice to know that other states and or countries practice or use similar technology, live streaming, in their own House and Senate proceedings.

“Whereas, live streaming of the House and Senate proceedings is recognized in other states and/or countries such as Vermont in New England, Arizona, New York, Colorado, Oregon, Oklahoma, Montana and Arkansas in the United States and in Canada. The streaming and recording of the Senate proceedings will encourage greater participation from the public. It is a known fact that most of the times, issues and discussions raised during the plenary sessions and committee hearings/meetings are misinterpreted which cause the unnecessary confusion to the public. With the age of high technology devices, live streaming of the Senate proceedings would lead to a more informed participation among the members of the Senate and the general public;”

Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan said, in his press release, that, “Through this bill, we will have initiated a greater informed participation among the members of the senate and the general public. We will bring the senate closer to the people. This will provide the public access to the inner workings of the legislative branch without editing or commentary, so that nothing will be misinterpreted, as they will be getting accurate information in real time."

House of the People

I had been privileged to have experience hearing the daily sessions of Congress from Mondays to Wednesdays, through the House of Representatives’ Public Address (PA) System, which is built in the whole House of Representatives. There are days when I would think that, “If only the people of the Philippines can hear what I am hearing (whenever, wherever – because it’s now live streamed), then probably, they would constantly be disturbed during their work and give harsh comments or give out a good laugh, once in a while. But seriously, they would be educated on how a bill becomes a law, and what our legislators do in sessions. Needless to say, maybe our Congressmen would shape-up and be up on their toes almost all the time.

This is one of the improvements, among other new media initiatives, I included in the report I submitted to improve the House of Representatives website, to be a true House of the People. Other measures both houses could study and adopt is the use of other social networking sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Podcasting, etc to reach to a lot more people. It’s nice to know that the House of Representatives already uses Facebook.

Blogwatch Live Stream

We have been doing live streaming in blogger events even before the 2010 National Elections, with super minimal budget, or none at all.  Blog Watch live stream channel can be found at ustream.tv/channel/blogwatch or blogwatch.tv for our alternative channels. Normally, Pocholo Gonzales and Peter Baltazar of Creative Voices back up our live streaming needs with their really cool (and expensive) microphone used for professional voice acting requirements, and video camera that’s connected to the computer with a high speed internet connection. Although this was our desired set-up, we have had days wherein we improvised with a laptop and a headset to make our live streaming work, and it did.  "Noemi Lardizabal-Dado, our project editor, who is an advanced iPhone user, serves as our backup livestreamer in case the WIFI goes down completely." There were even times when internet connection fell down to less than 1 MBps but we still managed to bring coverage by lowering the resolution.

It won’t cost that much initially, according to most bloggers who do live streaming. Though ideal setup is 2 Mbps connection with a good microphone to pick up good audio, it would be better to invest in the equipment if they’re really serious in implementing this. They need not buy a 30,000 peso microphone for this to get on its way and succeed in bringing Congress to the people. The Senate and the House of Representatives can start live streaming without waiting to buy the ideal setup. Just use a laptop with built in web cam and direct it close to the source of the audio. It is that simple.

Photos from Blog Watch Stock photos. Some Rights Reserved.