RODOLFO VILLARICA, who is called the “Father of the Philippine Internet,” gave a very interesting speech last night during the Philippine Internet Commerce Society’s 5th National E-Commerce Congress and Exhibit, which was also a celebration of the 13th anniversary of the Internet in the Philippines.
Villarica recounted the chain of events that eventually launched the Philippines into cyberspace, and paid tribute to two individuals who gave invaluable support but whom he had previously failed to acknowledge for their role in making this dream a reality.
Villarica also hailed the efforts of the late Ricardo Gloria, the former education secretary who played a key role in bringing the Internet to the Philippines.
Here’s a video clip of Villarica’s speech from our YouTube channel.
Villarica, a Cebuano, quipped that even as Ferdinand Magellan discovered Cebu, Cebu brought the world to the Philippines via the Internet.
Hmm, 13 years of the Philippine Internet. Let’s hope that won’t prove to be an unlucky number, heh. I’m not superstitious — are you?
March 19th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
DR. WILLIAM “BILL” TORRES is the father of Philippine Internet. As I recall, Dr. Bill Torres worked alongside with the late Dr. Willy Gan in setting up the first ever ISP in the Philippines - MOZCOM. They have also pioneered the DOST project in making Internet accessible to the Filipino people. LET US GIVE WHERE CREDIT IS DUE.
March 19th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Was he one of the guys from the consortium of universities that worked on the net.
What made Cebu the birthplace of RP’s first net connexion? USC techies may also have been the first guys to release viruses into the net. Pastilan!
How about the CyberPhil gurus who were first in EBBSs that used the UUCP connexion on the Fidonet backbone somewhere?
History of Philippine net? I recall Jim Ayson and Vic Reyes lecturing on this many years ago. Btw, what happened to PDI’s Third Wave writers, one of whom I taught how to use the net and who got to places because of that?
Hahaha
March 19th, 2007 at 9:43 am
magellan discovered the philippines? hhmmm
a fallacy that is…even up to now. Magellan arrived in Cebu, he did not discover the island since people were already living there
March 19th, 2007 at 9:14 am
When the internet was just starting to become popular world wide, I was getting my online fix through the now defunct COMPUSERVE. They started implementing a crude way to get an internet emails and WWW access through their service. That was around 1994-95.
I don’t remember Villarica being part of any of that.
March 19th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I have read an article before stating that William “Bill” Torres was the Father of Philippine Internet? So who is the real pioneer?