Today, I received an email from an officemate about the resignation of Malu Fernandez from Manila Standard. For those who don’t know, Malu Fernandez is a Filipino society columnist who had written an article that showed her seeming disgust for Filipino OFWs while she was aboard a plane bound for Greece. Curious about who Malu Fernandez was and what exactly were the people saying about her and her article, I googled her and found many blog posts about the controversy.
Based on the links that were the results of my Google search, it seems that prior to her resignation, there was an advocacy for her ouster from Manila Standard. A significant number of people who participated in the said “movement” were bloggers who, through their blogs, tried to influence others to join them in their cause (they were also many bloggers who just ranted about the issue and threw criticisms at the author rather than the offending article, but that’s for another post). Having been a news writer and an advocate in my past life, my first reaction to this online movement was “wow! an online revolution through online writing!”. Never before did I imagine that writing and the Internet could be joined forces to initiate and ultimately create change.
Not wanting to be called a hypocrite, I admit that my first impression of blogs was that they were just another online fad. I also had the unfortunate experience of having first read blog posts that were shallow and superficial, which made me all the more adverse to the idea of blogging. Later, wanting to have a journal that I could edit without having to make ugly strikethroughs on paper, I finally started a blog (no, not this one). I first thought of blogs as nothing more than online journals through which I could de-stress by writing. Later, when I discovered that my friends and acquaintances also had blogs of their own, I added their blogs to the blog roll in my new blog (this WordPress blog) so that I can still sort of keep in touch with them even though we may not always be together. I then thought of blogs as a way for people to connect, a way for people to share a part of their lives to each other through the posts and comments that they write. At that time, for me, blogs were merely the next online communication alternative that had mushroomed after email and Friendster. And then I read the email about Malu Fernandez. And then I read the blog posts. And then I found out about this “online movement” condemning the “so-disgusted-of-Filipino-OFWs” article that she wrote in the guise of what she calls “acerbic wit”.
The “movement” just started from one person or maybe a few people urging others to support the cause by encouraging them to email the Manila Standard editors of what they thought about the article that Fernandez wrote or write their thoughts about the article in their own blogs. These people who started the “ripple” of the movement also made an online sticker that bloggers could post on their blogs as a sign of their support to the cause. I don’t know when the movement started (I forgot to keep track of the dates of the posts) and I don’t know how many days, weeks, or months it took before Fernandez finally apologized and resigned. But the point is, through blogs, the Filipino online community (or at least a number of the said community… enough to make a significant impact) made a conscious and united effort to voice out that something is wrong with what Fernandez had written. And when I knew about it, it suddenly hit me that blogs can be more than just online journals. They can be more than accounts of thoughts, lives, and events. They can be used as instruments for change. This brings to mind a time in Philippine history when Jose Rizal, the Philippines’ national hero, became part of the revolution against the Spaniards’ oppressive rule in the country by wielding his quill and fighting with words that spoke of the truth and the need for change. Today, we have more than pens and papers as peaceful instruments for bringing about the change that we want to see in our society and in our world. Various forms of media have emerged over time from which we can choose our weapon of choice in advocating for a better society or world. With responsible use of these instruments of change and with our combined efforts, hopefully, we can someday achieve the changes that we wish to see in the world that we live in.
