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It’s always fun to go to parties and just socialize with the other guests. It’s quite easy to make people leave their couches and beds on any given weekend if they’re promised a good meal, freebies and few drinks. It’s not a no-brainer really - most bloggers work and go to school for five (sometimes even six) days a week and a cool party and the prospect of meeting and rubbing elbows with the who’s who of the local blogging scene could be an offer that is very hard to refuse.

Who doesn’t want to have a good time, right? Blogging has emerged as a vibrant and exciting medium for people to demonstrate their passion and talent for writing , fight for their advocacies or earn a sizable amount of money. I’ve been joining blog events for close to ten months now and for the large part, it’s been a steady mix of partying, eating, chit-chat and a shameless display of URL-dropping and blog-pimping.

Again, admittedly, it’s fun. It’s great. But I know there are some people who want to do more with their blogging. I have nothing against people who choose to write poems and share how their day went, but I think blogging has a great potential in airing out the opinions and grievances of many people. As I’ve written many times over, everyone has the right to share their opinions. Blogs have opened the avenue to a lot of people to have their individual soapboxes that could be of use in addressing the rest of the world.

During the Malu Fernandez issue, a good number of bloggers that cut across the demographic and readership statistics of the Philippine Blogging Community found themselves writing about the same thing and for once, it seemed like the now-commercial and less socially-conscious sector was a bit more sensitive of what’s going on. For a while there, people weren’t that into increasing Page Rank, building links and Adsense earnings. Through Tingog, Tinig and a host of other bloggers, we witnessed the silent majority - people who don’t really blog but are exposed to the medium of the the internet. They used other people’s as a launching pad for their ideas and even if their individual message of disgust was somehow obscured due to the volume, their collective anger and condemnation was very much palpable.

And now, with much regret and surprise, I see someone who was in that very same group that is now throwing that group of people under the bus based on shoddy logic and uncalled for generalizations.

Just because this blogger disagreed with the idea of boycotting the show Desperate Housewives - a move that I’m also against because it doesn’t send a strong message, a class action suit would be more apt, in my opinion — he has already made the logical leap by saying that If this is the case, then I guess Malu Fernandez was right to call us a lynch mob.

Wow. It was so easy to make that generalization, huh? Never mind that he blogged about the issue extensively as well. Let’s also forget that he also designed a badge that was supports the boycotting of the Manila Standard. I’m amused that it was so easy for him to turn his back on the idea that he supported - fighting for the rights of OFWs through blogs. And how did he justify it?

For example, everyone thought the Malu Fernandez issue would go on forever, but what happened now? Malu Fernandez is back at Manila Standard and is quietly writing articles about beauty stuffs and good living. Manila Standard Today is still standing and the call for boycott was nothing but a voice that is forgotten.

Following that line of argumentation, we’re a lynch mob because Malu Fernandez is still writing. And implicitly, he is says that the validation of blogging for the rights of OFWs would have only served its purpose and realized if Malu Fernandez is now unemployed and NOT quietly writing articles about beauty stuffs and good living.

I don’t think I need to explain further but let’s go through the facts quickly. One, Malu Fernandez wrote the article on People Asia and not on the Manila Standard. The Manila Standard chose to keep her and that’s the gambit that they took. Two, the Manila Standard has a pathetic weak circulation. It’s arguable that most of the people who boycotted the paper didn’t even bother to read that broadsheet before this issue came out. Ederic Eder is actually against the boycott because it introduces more people to an unknown and unheralded publication. In the end, it could end up helping them.

The value of voicing out of our opinions was never meant to be measured on whether some arrogant lifestyle writer rots penniless. The essence of that exercise was to show that through this medium, we could share to the world our thoughts and feelings. This was true for myself, Josel (who saw his hits jump up from 60 to 50,000 during this entire ordeal), Noemi and a lot of other people.

I resent the insinuation that those who blogged about how OFWs should be treated with respect and dignity acted like a lynch mob. I resent the the idea that those who felt the need to verbalize their disgust about the Desperate Housewives slur were the kind of people who would act irrationally and emotionally to such an issue.

Speak for yourself. Doctors in the US and their families have all the right to cite their opposition and their disgust. Medical professionals and students here could also vouch for education that they got. Concerned citizens who find the remark offensive can sound off as they please. Just who are you exactly to call their actions irrational and emotional?

Ironically, one of the the articles discusses the value of blogging about the flavor of the month. I know I’m not the only one who found that funny.

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