(Originally published as a column piece on Jan. 24, 2007)

AS I’ve said in my previous column piece “The revolution will not be televised, but blogged,” I believe 2007 will be the Year of the Filipino Blogger.

I’m glad Filipino blogger Abe Olandres, whom many know by his nick yuga, finds himself agreeing with this assessment, though it seems the comments on his blog post have gone on a different tangent, as some apparently felt it was offensive to Filipinos who work overseas, particularly blue-collar workers. While I respect where people in both sides of the debate were coming from, I think some things were said in the heat of the moment, and I just didn’t want to add to that. Or maybe I was just lazy, heh.

Abe’s site, by the way, is arguably the most popular Philippine blog — heck, apparently ABS-CBN even used it as one of the answers to the trivia questions in its game show “Pilipinas, Game KNB?” (To those who aren’t familiar with Filipino SMS-speak, that’s pronounced “Pilipinas, Game Ka Na Ba?” meaning “Pilipinas, Are You Game?” It’s a spin-off of Kris Aquino’s earlier game show “Game Ka Na Ba?” and… why the hell am I recounting Filipino show biz history, heh.)

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(Originally published as a column piece on Dec. 13, 2006)

SINGAPORE reminds me a lot of Terminus and the Foundation, I told one of my fellow delegates at X|Media|Lab Singapore during the cocktails to celebrate the last day of the digital workshop. He was a professor who had moved from the United Kingdom over a decade ago to find greener pastures in the Lion City, and he smiled at the geeky reference to Isaac Asimov’s classic science fiction masterpiece.

“I wouldn’t be surprised to see a space ship land here,” he quipped, pointing out how futuristic the National Library was. The party was being held at The Pod, which is on the top floor of the 16-storey new National Library building that opened last year to replace the old one in Stamford Road. You can’t access The Pod, which is not open to the public but rather used for special functions and events, via the regular elevators. Instead, you need to make your way to the special elevator, where you will be greeted by someone with an access card that will allow you to board and be transported to the top floor, where a breathtaking panoramic view of Singapore and even nearby countries like Malaysia and Indonesia awaits you.

How geeky and even “Mission Impossible”-like is that?

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