I have nothing against Pat Mangubat. He seems to be a decent guy and a patriot, but one recent post he did on his blog has him accusing unnamed bloggers of being sell outs, specifically to “corporate Public Relations practitioners (and Malacanang press operators).”
He goes on by pleading to these unnamed individuals:
YOU–YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID–SHAME ON YOU! Shame that you sold your very soul to the highest bidder. Shame that you even sold your friends, telling politicos and marketing managers that you own them when you know in your heart that you don’t own anyone. Bloggers are not commodities. We are not for sale!
This is OK. An honest man pleading to a unnamed dishonest persons to be honest. This is fair. What I find disturbing, however, is the following paragraph.
To my fellow bloggers, hear my plea—MAKE THE PHILIPPINE BLOGOSPHERE CLEAN. DON’T ALLOW THIS HALLOWED PLACE OF FREE EXPRESSION BE CORRUPTED BY CORPORATE SPONSORSHIPS, POLITICAL OPERATORS AND WHAT HAVE YOU. WE MUST POLICE OUR RANKS. WE MUST STAY CLEAR OF PEOPLE WHO USE US JUST TO PROMOTE A DEFECTIVE PRODUCT, DEFEND A DIRTY POLITICIAN OR DESTROY REPUTATIONS.
This sentence in particular–We must police our ranks–I find presumptuous. Policing the blogosphere is PRESUMPTUOUS. The Web is a free medium and blogs being the freest of all websites. It’s easy to put up and easy to “promote” (make popular, in blogging terms). You do not have to be a programmer or a designer to own your own blog and if you wish, you can have a blog for free. You also don’t have to be anything else: not a writer, not a scientist, not a PhD, not famous. Hell, you do not even have to have a brain. Then this word RANKS. What does this mean? Are we troopers in a battle field? Are we a clan, a club, an org? And who is we?
Pat also mentioned being invited to a party of sorts attended by these so-called Most Influential Bloggers. He relishes the time he spent talking to his mentor and some famous bloggers like MLQ3 and even mentioned the elusive cutie, ROM, how lucky he was that he got to finally meet her. Great, but I get the feeling Rom is only meant to be eyeballed by the likes of Marocharim, Jester and Atheista. Yikes, no BrianB in your itinerary Rom? Oh well.
And you mentioned that “People like Butch Dado and his lovely wife Noemi, Dang, Janet, JV and all others are trying their darnest best to keep the Pinoy Blogosphere clean as a whistle but this stupid ingrate tried to spoil everything.”
Are you serious? You really think they have a say whether the pinoy blogosphere is clean or not? I don’t think so. And what makes you think they do not allow corporate influence in their own sites? Not that I know they do.
The thing is this, and this is going to hurt. I believe all this influential blogger and top blogger business have gotten into the heads of a few honest souls here in the “pinoy blogosphere.” What is the pinoy blogosphere anyway? Does this include all the 3 million blogs owned and maintained by pinoys? What does Pat mean when he says US?
Let me reveal a little something to you folks. I am a paid blogger. I have managed about a dozen sites in the past 2 years I have been working as a blogger. Many of these sites have had modest successes. Successes? Right now, I am managing three blogs full time. One of them is PMPtoday.com, which gets about 7,000 pageviews daily. We sell ad space and we also have adsense. Our biggest earner so far is an affiliate program, which I shall not name. Basically, every time a poor soul buys thru our site, we get a cut. PMPToday has been mentioned in many of the most popular sites on the Internet regularly. Meaning, we get sourced by the likes of Engadget and Gizmodo. These two sites get millions of readers every month. Every month. We were even cited on a major (I mean $100 million big ones) ad campaign by a cellphone maker. Don’t even start me talking about the two other blogs, which I won’t because I have signed a confidentiality agreement not to tell people the writer of these blogs is a Filipino.
I am telling you this for two reasons. First, I am a paid blogger. Second, I know blogging. I suppose many people here think they know blogging, but let me tell you something, the tech blogger really knows blogging. We know because among all blogs we usually get the most traffic and we know because tech blogs are the most active and, arguably, among the most influential. Political blogs are great but have you heard of a political blog who has caused a major US company to lose billions of dollars in stock value in one day? A tech blog did that. We are the ones who decide economics-wise whether banner advertising should affect the posts or not (it should not) or whether pay-per-post is viable (not in a highly trafficked sites, especially a site with a good reputation). Wait. I am telling you all these for a third reason. You need to know a little more about me because that is SUPPOSED to create trust. Well, short of meeting some of you at Starbucks one of these days, there it is.
Am I bragging? Maybe. Am I being an A-hole? Maybe. The point though is this: I don’t give a good HOT DAMN about myself as a blogger. I really don’t. It’s a livelihood, that’s it. I plan to get out of blogging altogether after a year. What would I do after? I dunno, maybe I’d go sailing. I do give a damn about ethics, even online. I also know that pinoy bloggers do not have to re-invent the wheel. I mentioned the two most popular tech blogs, now I’ll mention a very popular political blog, Huffington Post. For people who do not think Huffington Post is a blog can go to this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_blog. It’s at the bottom, under notable blogs. Now, Huffington Post is very blog business. Yes it is about politics but it is also a BUSINESS. Most blogs are businesses. Nothing PURE about them. The only pure thing, if we are lucky, is the truth that is sometimes revealed and talked about in these blogs.
Now, let me get back to Pat’s post. I agree that a blogger who gets paid by a politician to promote said politician is a bad apple. What I don’t agree with Pat about is his belief that keeping the identity to himself is the ethical thing to do as opposed to being the unethical. He’d rather have us all guessing and accusing one another. He’d rather have the likes of me, who does not twitter or plurk, to be totally in the dark about it. A blog, I used to think, is where bad apples get outed. It’s where ordinary people get to listen to shop talk. Where known sell-outs in our newspapers, TV and radio get exposed by their own colleagues. Blind items, I believe whether online or on print, is unethical. It exists because of a loophole in our libel and slander laws, which we cannot do anything about.
Like I wrote in Rom’s comment section, these nameless accused bloggers deserve a chance to defend themselves. They really do, especially when people like your commenter Gail already think they know who this blogger or these bloggers are:
Gail(Who am I?) said…
Nice to meet you at the party, Pat! Sorry I stole Juned (and ran out of calling cards hehe), we haven’t chatted for about a month already :) Anyway, if he hasn’t sent you my email yet, you can reach me through my site.
Hmm.. I have a feeling this is the same person that made my blood pressure rise a couple of notches when I was told about it.
But, as I have said, there really are still people who WILL make the effort to keep some things “clean.” Some just have an awful moral compass, they think everyone is like them just because they’re like that. They’re deluding themselves, but the fact remains that there are still people who will try to keep things clean no matter what.
December 12, 2008 6:07 AM
So what do you say, Pat? Do we deserve to be enlightened further?
About the writer: BrianB manages several popular blogs including pmptoday.com. He also has a new personal blog–bigsmallepisodes.wordpress.com–that he updates whenever he CANNOT write.
Popularity: 2% [?]
Eyeballed? You got it all wrong, BrianB, I just want to be her friend. Anyway… I’ll be a bit… honest, in my comment.
It’s not about bad apples getting outed. OK, there’s an allegation of a list. Where is it? That, I think, is a question we should answer first.
Hmmm…
Pardon the disagreement: the only people who can determine blogging are the bloggers themselves. For me, blogging is not about adsense, SEO, and all that jazz which, in my view, have corrupted and denigrated the WRITERS who make all this possible.
It’s not about hits, it’s not about the money, it’s not about the fame, it’s about the writing. People forget about how many hits you make, how much money you make out of adsense, how many keywords you need to make it to number one. People remember the ideas you put forward.
Short sentence fragments: NOT popularity. NOT SEO. NOT hits. WRITING.
To be honest, I have had it up to here with people who take blogging… no wait, WRITING, for granted. I am sick and tired of all of it. Pardon me for being emotional and frustrated AGAIN, BrianB, but I am sick and tired of bloggers like you who talk about your hits, your SEO, you ranking, your whatever, and you forget the most important thing about all of this.
WRITING.
If blogging is about famous bloggers, if it’s about having names, if it’s about SEO and ranks and page views, I don’t know what to think anymore.
If it’s not about the writing – the craft, the act, the passion, the desire, the necessity, the memory… you know what, if it stops being about that, if it starts being about the money and the hits and the promotions, I don’t want anything to do with it.
just because a blogger makes money doesn’t make him/her “unclean”. blogs are big business and the reason a lot of people get into it is because of its profit potential. i don’t make any money from my blog because it is not my main income source. but if ever i do get an offer to monetize it, that wouldn’t make me a commodity for the corporate giants to buy and use to their advantage. i still believe that most of the big-name bloggers still listen to their conscience and will not promote a defective product or support an infamously corrupt politico. i do know of one or two who deserve to be taken down, but that’s just my opinion.
Don’t I see their faces (except for the lawyer) in every free promotion event, whether it is food or product intro?
I have nothing against that. But for you to extol them like they are the watchdog of the blogosphere, ano ka HILO.
You made my day Pat. You should not be wearing your colored glasses that become clear only for your bogger-friends.
What a clueless person you are!!
Do you see their blogs with ads? Did you ever attend heir events sponsored by corporations ?
I see nothing worng with that. But to exempt them from this website monetization, ano ka natutulog sa bundok? SHEESH
blog ethichs? that’s nice, but who will determine that one’s post is unethical?
i am in favor of free for all. let the readers see for themselves the ideas of advertisers masquerading as legit purveyors of the truth.
my take: freedom of the press is better abused than curtailed. let those who abused this freedom die a natural death when their ideas, like rotten products are rejected by the consumers.
we should be discriminating.
MLQ3 receives money from the pageviews he generates on his blogsite.
The Ca t receives money from the pageviews she generates on her blogsite.
Page views do not generate income. It is the click in the Google adsense. even of you have million page views if there is no single click in the ad, there is no revenue. You cannot also click the ad in your website, you get penalized.
I run ads in my website but i am not the income recipient.
get it?
Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval is serious business. The owners of the seal-of-approval generates tons of money from giving out the seal-of-approval. Businesses and organizations will pay good money to receive the Seal-of-Approval that makes people think “extra-special, pure and unadulterated, believable”.
Pat may be on to something.
The GreatSealOfApproval should not be given to blogsites that pass on rumors, distort the truth or tarnish people’s reputations.
Welcome to FV Brianb!
Mauricio, cite your sources please.
BrianB, I feel you may have a point, it’s too bad it got buried under all the chest beating.
Hi, Marck. I only mentioned it to show you where I’m coming from. Yes, I wouldn’t blog at all if it weren’t for money. I got published in a magazine way back in the mid-Nineties. I participate on online forums, because I like discussions. It takes less time than reading a book, I guess. I also believe that blogs can be powerful. I mentioned that only in blogs can newspaper columnist talk shop and share “rumors” or helpful insights on other columnists. Before blogs became a fad here in the RP one needs a lot of discernment to tell a good Opinion from a corrupted one.
I mean, since I got published on print I never really had a use for online publication. That’s for my own writing. Other people’s writing online are invaluable to me.
*beats chest*
again.
wittle ego feel better now?
Huh, you noticed. Good for you.
You know you’re onto something. When I’m being honest I tend to sound boastful. I wonder why that is. Though come to think of it I haven’t really mentioned anything impressive above.
Stick to your point Brian, you may actually have something decent to contribute for once. Like mentioned before, CONTENT IS KING. Too bad yours is under a shitload of self-validation. Is that a psychological need or did these pickup lines ever work on anyone?
Point of this post, is this thegreatest. No one should presume to be the police of the intarwebs and no one should presume there is an hierarchy in the pinoy blogosphere. That list that Patricio knows about, if it exists, at all, isn;t just about ethics in the blogosphere. It’s about ethics, period. Why he or any other person cares to out these rotten bloggers is beyond me. This is the medium for outing people. Right? Besides, I already have my suspicions… say, I’m a politico and I want to pay a blogger a lot of money to promote myself. Who do I pay… there are only a few names I can think of. It’s this sort of thinking among all of us that I want to prevent.
you got that right! Your gloating, tsk do not at all sound even a tad bit impressive so I was actually wondering, what’s the point in that? I was nodding at your most of your points until the [insert self-validation here, kthnx] portion came up.
“Welcome to FV Brianb!”
Yeah, CVJ, didn’t see you.
Fritz. read Patricio’s post. Don’t you think he needs to be shown the other side of blogging? The less soulful side?
How can I be *totally* bragging when I respect what Pat Mangubat and Marocharim and Smoketalk do more than I respect what I do, in blogging terms.
Because I’m too lazy to rephrase, my comment as left on another blog:
If there’s something bloggers are good at, it’s in revealing information and calling people out, whoever they are, be they politicians, industry people, or fellow bloggers. They should have no fear of retaliation or repercussions if they truly believed their information is true.
I don’t buy this crap until I see proof. Like I mentioned in another comment, if you’re going to be doing blind items and spreading rumors, then you’re no better than that guy…er, gay on The Buzz.
My point is, if you’re going to be calling people out, GET SOME BALLS and name names. IF you are privy to such information, then other bloggers deserve to know, the blogger in question deserves to be named (so his credibility as a blogger, reporter, journalist, tribe leader can be questioned), to keep this supposed bloggers world …. clean.
Name names? Why, when the value of knowing “the-greatest”‘s or other people’s names is not worth the effort?
NOEMI DADO? JV? CLEANING THE PHILIPPINE BLOGOSPHERE?!
Pwede ba akong magmura dito?! Hahaha!
im just a new blogger. actually naobserve ko po na dapat di na magpaniwala sa mga tao/ group of bloggers. madaming mayayabang.. lalo na mga old bloggers na parang kinuconsider nila na sila na ang mga gods of blogging sa pinas. i agree presumptuous talga na sabihin na may nagpopolice sa blog at dapat may magpolice.
OMG! This is just crazy.
One, stupid politician for thinking that one blogger, no matter how popular he is, could help him in the context of the Philippine setting?
Two, police the blogosphere? How naive, presumptuous, and unrealistic. Like BrianB said, there are millions of blogs out there.
Three, responses are getting to the heads of some “most influential” bloggers. What the heck, if you look at the commenters/posters its the same people who maintain their own blogs.
Kung baga, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.
Kung baga, you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. —hmmm.. korek yan. influential bloggers are making an elite group of bloggers who think that they are all know-how.
precisely
despite perception to the contrary, i think mangubat is really a well-meaning crusader. the problem is, i think, that his approach is usually not fit for the adult world. if only he can distinguish between suspicion and guilt. i think presumptuousness is a general disease of philippine “journalists” and mangubat just believes it’s s.o.p.
It should be self-evident that one should listen with doubting ears to people employed by politicians or by “foreigners” (foreign governments, foreign NGOs, foreign newspapers, etcetera).
before someone misrepresents me, im not trying to police the blogosphere.
in 2006, bloggers wanted to be a part of “the credible media” so i did my share, like a few others, and proposed inviting bloggers to events. i talked to ad agencies, media buyers, PR agencies and corporations. some listened. most were hesitant. now we have the snowball effect where blogging is the new trend in PR and marketing in the PH.
and now, people say we have too many events. so what will it be people? all i did was help make bloggers more credible to corporations. what they write, what they do whether foolish or praiseworthy is their own freedom.
besides, i’ve never made a buck out of inviting people to events.
Just to set the record straight here.
I never made any claims to make the blogosphere clean. Nor have I boasted that I am squeaky clean. I admit I have made mistakes in the past and learned from it.
It is Patricio Mangubat’s perception of how he views me and other bloggers. I have no control on how bloggers write about me and my husband. Blogging is a medium for free expression. Whether good or bad, I have no control.
FYI.
Bato-Bato sa langit tamaan wag magalit. May punto naman si Pat sa post niya. Ang natatawa lang ako may mga blogger na nakita lamang ang mga ibang blogger na namention at super-react and with matching post. Dito nakikita ang blogging na hindi man pinapatakbo ng pera ay pinapatakbo ng galit sa ibang tao. Tumbling-tumbling ako sa kaka tawa. Kawawa naman ang mga blogger na ito. Na mention lang e ginawa ng rason para i-attack. Mga pangit na badingerzies.
So mga nakokonsensiya:
Lahat naman ito ang kalaban mo konsensiya. Hindi mo na kailangan tirahin si Pat. Sarili mo! Kung OLRAYT di Beauty kung hindi FUGLY ka Badette!
Tsura neto !
Forcyringoutloud. Pinoy blogosphere, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. There’s always some stupid controversy going on. “Blogging is pure soul” “sacred”. give me a freaking break. Anyone who considers blogging like that seriously needs to get out there and smell fresh air. Or better yet, get a life.
Hi Bencard,
Is it just my presumption that discussing with you makes one puke? No. Ding did that and all the others here at FV.
hEY PEOPLE,
I am quite amazed that some of us are hitting fellow bloggers when we should really read between the lines of the post and hit the real culprit–the one who made the list and the one who sold us to that politico. Period.
Now, to be fair to those bloggers whom I wrote in my post–I DID NOT CATEGORICALLY SAY THAT THEY POLICE OR ARE POLICING THE RANKS. NO. WHAT I WROTE IS THEY ARE TRYING TO MAINTAIN THE BLOGOSPHERE IN ITS “PRISTINE STATE” WHY HIT THEM?
byy the way brianb…the “you” here refers to one person, not a group of people.
You may have some basis why you wrote it. As I have said, explain. and why name these people.
Define: trying. Define pristine.
Mas lalo naman nakakatawa yong claim niya.
And the bloggers mentioned did not even correct him. Nasaan ang labas sa ilong na hindi naman, pati rin kami tumatanggap ng mga donations at mga freebies sa corporate sponsors sa event na pinupuntahan namin.
Hindi naman kasi kami rin kumikita sa blog namin.
Sheesh.
Hello Badette!
I like your blog! Pwedeng pa-link?! Hahaha! I’m glad I made you laugh. Laugher blogger kasi ang badingerzie na itechewahara.
And I agree with you. Me punto naman talaga si Pat. Kaya nga sabi ko linisin na yong blog nya eh.
O di ba Badette? Hahaha
I have no more use of this witness, your honor. He said it all.Pat take note.
Pat commented: “some of us are hitting fellow bloggers when we should really read between the lines of the post and hit the real culprit”
Hey Pat,
You were the ones who put the names of these bloggers as your role models and so you should be prepared enough to bolden up your claims on them.
I was over at your site and I saw how MLQ3 reprimanded you for jumping way too fast. I am also reading here two comments from your role models who you claim as cleaning up the blogosphere and it looked like they even disown your statements now!
If you claim you’re an ethical blogger, practice it. Put a name and don’t drag other bloggers by sucking up to them and expect them to scratch your back because it looked like no one wants to scratch your back.
There’s something wrong with your social climbing skills. Contact me. I can help.
Bring Badette with you.
“Ding did that and all the others here at FV”. patricio mangubat @ 2:12pm.
talk about being “presumptuous”, see what i mean?
It is unfortunately not so rare to come across such undiluted hypocrisy – from the likes of CAT, REYNA ELANA & NEOMI DADO.
Whether it be Corporate Influence (the big business of the Philippines – attracting money via its one undeniable export – SEX – in all its guises) – a reaction from bigotted defensiveness – or simply jumping on the bandwagon to create traffic – by creating propaganda of a most insidious, hostile and totally biased & self-opinionated nature, unsupported by any unequivocal evidence.
In Neomi’s case – even lending her voice, her endorsement, to an hour long video interview – without caring or bothering to check the facts of the case. Her only intention being to cover up the truth.
Pure propaganda – they admit to creating SEO experiments to get their material in the public eye. By incorporating accusations of racism in their material they hoped to incite more support, from people who would not check thoroughly the facts for themselves. A victory for quantity over quality – camouflage over the truth – bamboozle over honesty.
Such is the calibre of these people.
Let it be known – let it be known.
Oh mothaa! Beware this deranged UK individual! He is back on a prowl for another Filipina to destroy with an ad here: http://london.flirtbox.co.uk/ellumbra.
Ellumbra! Ellumbra! Ellumbra! You’re one bloody shame of UK with your gremlin twisted blogs! Lord of bloody UK scumbags! Are you a relative of this UK daughter rapist?! Do change! Life is beautiful than populating the web with lies and your morbid Filipina insanities and fantasies.
Rejoice Ellumbra, for once you’ve managed to get my lovely, undivided, voluntary and puking attention. I am aware how hard you’ve followed me. Knocking on my bloglogs, asking to be on my facebook, and bombarding my blog with your comments which are now in my akismet repository and boy how hard you’ve tried to get my attention, I did not realize that you’ve fallen for a cute guy in me hahaha! Pathetic. Dude! I’m not interested in you!
Clean up your bloody UK blogs before even commenting on our topic here because honestly, you should have spent your precious time talking to a mental doctor.
Gosh! Why did I even bother to comment on yah?! Sorry to the owner of this post! It’s your prerogative to delete my comment and his!
LOL@ tim cumper (aka ellumbra)
THIS IS THE LAST PLACE YOU WOULD WANT TO EXPOSE YOURSELF.
but wait, i agree on what you said.. LET IT BE KNOWN! LET IT BE KNOWN! LET IT BE KNOWN…. THAT YOU ARE A F*CKING RETARD.
and also let it be known… let it known, besides being a F*CKIN RETARD, He’s also a BLOODY F*CKIN STALKER.
LET IT BE KNOWN! LET IT BE KNOWN! SCUMBAG.
Timothy Ellis Cumper aka ellumbra deserves attention guys! Now how about you start blogging about him instead of generating chismis?
Mas entertaining si cumper promise.
So the old British man is still alive? Can’t believe it, after the hundreds and thousands of blogs that he opened to tell his story about his Filipina girl friend, accused a medical hospital and businessman of scamming him of his pathetic hundred pounds, stalked all the bloggers who refused to sympathize with him, he is still trying to convince a single person to believe him.
Did we not sweep his blogs already to oblivion?
He should get advice from Brian Gorrel how to generate hits for his trashy website. Shame on the old man, nobody bought his story and so he stalked the bloggers who revealed his true story.No publishers would like to publish his story which is full of racism, bigotry and insults to the Filipino people. I won’t even pay a penny for it.
Did your wife not divorce you yet? Shame, shame. A married man who stealthily came to the Philippines, promised marriage to a Filipno he got impregnated…accused the FIlipina of hoax because he’s afraid that his wife may just kick him out of their house.
In UK, infidelity is a reason for a spouse to lose his right on conjugal property during divorce.
It’s been two years and you are still polluting the blogosphere. Shame on you Englishman.