Menardconnect.com Supports the Blogger’s Manifesto

Menardconnect.com supports the Bloggers Manifesto.

I agree with the majority of the items in the National Bloggers Association of the Philippines manifesto and I am willing to contribute and suggest for its improvement. I know it is not perfect manifesto now but I believe its a good start and I am giving the bloggers association a chance to come to fruition.

I understand that there have been a lot of buzz and concerns with the idea, the association and the manifesto itself and as an individual blogger I appreciate the constructive criticisms and non combative posts sharing the different views on this topic.

I am always trying to keep an open mind on issues like this and I admit that by reading different views (both the pro, the anti-, the maybe and the neutral stance posts) can help broaden my overall understanding of the real issues at hand.

I am quoting the manifesto below:

One country, one blogging community.
A Manifesto of Filipino bloggers and netizens (Draft)

March 7, 2011

We, Filipino bloggers coming from various places nationwide and those based overseas, coming from diverse backgrounds and specialties, using various new media outlets, hereby freely come together and call for the formation of a bloggers association of the Philippines that shall unite us around these common and beneficial objectives:

Promote and defend the right to free speech and to free expression;

Promote and develop blogging, vlogging, photoblogging, microblogging and other online creative and expressive forms in all their diverse categories, topics and types;

Gather and share Philippine blogging’s best practices that reflect our contributions to ourselves and our online communities, media, causes, organizations and businesses, government, the nation and the world;

Draft and adopt a code of ethics that underscore the members’ and organization’s sense of responsibility and maturity;

Discuss issues and concerns that confront our members; and

Campaign and work for more affordable, reliable and better internet access in the country

The association we aspire to form is voluntary in membership, national in scope, democratic in decision-making, progressive in outlook, and both non-partisan and non-profit in legal character.

We draw inspiration from and ask the participation of the city-wide, provincial, regional and island-wide associations, summits and conventions initiated by bloggers across the country. We also pay tribute to overseas Filipinos and their blogging organizations and events.

We want an association that makes decisions based on democratic processes, consensus-building and mutual benefit.

A long time has passed since the first blog posts and first blogging events. We are now a bigger, stronger and influential community. Businesses, causes and government have started to organize themselves to interact and engage with us. And we also face challenges within and outside our growing community.

The Philippines, our country and people are also expecting more from us, and we bravely and fearlessly say that we want to do more and achieve more In view of all these and more, we declare that we are joining as founding members of what we hope would be a most awesome bloggers association for our country.

I have my reservations on the naming (National Bloggers Association of the Philippines or Philippines Blogger Association) but for me its a minor concern. The more important thing here is that we move on and open up more consultative discussions on this issue.

At the end of the day, I just hope that we could agree to agree and agree to disagree, as Tonyo put it eloquently on one of his post.

To know more about the manifesto read the link/s below:
We want a national bloggers association of the Philippines
If you agree to the manifesto (or parts of it) I encourage you to sign up and support it.

Menardconnect.com Supports the Blogger’s Manifesto

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