LESS THAN ONE IN EVERY THREE Filipinos have direct access to the social network and public discourse that the Internet offers.
Even sadder still, access to devices that enable citizens to create and send information and content online, as well as the slow speed of connection make life less happy for those online. Of the 30 percent of Filipinos with access to the Internet, only 70 to 80 percent are on YoutUbe, Facebook, and social network sites.
This profile of the Internet community in the Philippines, according to blogger Juned Sonido of Baratillo Pamphlet, makes for a “digital divide” that denies many Filipinos a chance to cross over online.
Sonido, citing Philippine and foreign studies on civic engagement in the digital age, said that local web access services remain “a lot slower from the rest of the world.”
Many users access the the web from their offices, using office equipment, hence the “peak hours” of Internet use are logged from 12 noon to 4 pm.
Most Filipinos seem reluctant to use the Internet, he said, and there is a dearth of studies on patterns of Internet by Filipinos, except for those conducted for marketing purposes.
Yet even as few citizens are active online, the Philippine government, like most of its counterparts in the world, is also vigorously monitoring content uploads online. Meanwhile, many candidates in the last elections have also take to meeting and dining with bloggers who have significant numbers of followers, he said.
The most important thing to remember, according to Sonido, is that the Internet offers nearly limitless time and space for expansion. The analogy that applies to the Internet, in his mind, is that of the miracle of the fish and the loaves of bread — multiplied many times over to nourish the multitude.