Democracy is something one defends and enriches everyday, isn’t it? Take this bit from RG’s Replying to Right to Reply, which talks about another attempt by those in government to control everything, to regulate everything by those who are out of step with our time. RG’s point is spot on:

On its face, the right of reply bill seems to enshrine in the statutes of the land what has always been a time honored ethical responsibility of all professional journalists—that all subjects, sides in a news story be given equal opportunities to make their case. This is in adherence to the tenet that the best test for the validity of ideas is to let them exist in a free marketplace of ideas.

Yet by the very act of giving it the force of law—and putting that force in a personality or figure outside of the media establishment—it also defeats the existence of a free marketplace of ideas.

From the onset—I will never suffer, tolerate or support any form of media restraint of control. By virtue of its watchdog function, the only acceptable form of media regulations is self regulation.

In an age when we must Decentralize Tomorrow, increasingly, Filipino leaders are creating a world that is so 1984. Haven’t we learned enough from George W. Bush that an Age of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt leaves only a world far poorer not just economically, but culturally and intellectually as well?

The global changes happening around us is something that has been both puzzling and intriguing me. Clearly there is change happening and that a new economic model is taking place that has the characteristics of Capitalism but has a Social dimension as well. What it is, I’ve no idea. People far smarter and far wiser than I, have been searching for the same thing. More and more the name of Irving Fisher as a Modern Behavioral Economist is being mentioned.

Paul Saffo was interviewed last December 31st where he talked about the future and how the economy is going to move. One of the things that struck me the most was his discussion on the changes in the economy. He talked about a new central actor driving this change. This new economic animal he said, does both the activity of consumer and producer in the same act:

There are many lessons to be learned. Why are we Filipinos (myself included, of course) have this undying hate for failure? We ostracize failure. So what if this is the writing on the wall? Shouldn’t we fail early, fail often?

Blacklisted firms confirm corruption: made me laugh a bit:

The smoking gun came straight from the horses’ mouth.

Firms previously engaged in and eventually banned from World Bank-funded projects had confirmed that politicians and rebel groups get a share in road projects, causing costs to skyrocket.

At least one admitted that a cartel involving national politicians operates at the Department of Public Works and Highways.

Even rebels are part of the problem. Why do you think people are more interested in elections than revolution? Precisely because there is no difference between rebel and politician. Where there is smoke, there is fire and electoral reform in the form of automation is a Big Lie. I agree, but have to ask, why are we still surprised?

Ok, I take back the part of “why are we still surprised”. That was just me being cynical and jaded.

This plurk thread that fellow FV contributor Arbet started on Right to Reply had @nick and @eloisa and bunch of us talking about what exactly does it mean and how we could encourage democracy more. Increasingly, I have come to the realization that simply building infrastructure isn’t enough. Certainly it plays a huge part of the answer to emancipate our people from ignorance, and from being stuck in the 19th and 20th century. Increasingly the answer for the Philippines is for people to truly have a more personal experience with the Internet. That we should adapt as a measure Net Neutrality as the Norwegians have done in conjuncture with When Running Code in Filipino:

Decriminalizing defamation law as well as the formation of a non-profit Freedom Foundation to ensure Free Speech and Free Expression is clearly needed.

There should be preferential treatment to make hardware, software, and true internet-ready mobile phones as well as access to the Internet more affordable and yet for these technologies to be successful in emancipating our people from the shackles of ignorance and into the light of being a Creator and Creative in the future economy, there must be education evolved to open our people’s eyes beyond mere friendster and mere yahoo messenger into leveraging these technologies. This is what’s it like to be learning and working in the collaborative age:

That is a new model for the workplace.

Are we creating 1984 or would you prefer we create our future, free from the shackles of ignorance and be part of creative destruction?

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