Social Networking and Transparency

Friday, 13 May 2011 03:03

Written by Louie C. Montemar

Venezuela, Colombia, Peru, Indonesia, Malaysia, Argentina, Chile, Turkey, Israel, and the Philippines. What is this? A list of countries most threatened by terrorism, illegal drugs, disease, and poverty? No. A recently posted internet article identified “The Ten Nations Where Facebook Rules The Internet” (by Charles Stockdale and Douglas A. McIntyre), and these are those countries, with the Philippines at the top of the list.

The article says that “there is no obvious explanation for this except that some of these markets are among the first where Facebook introduced its service.” For us avid internet users in the urban jungle, it is almost no surprise to learn that the Philippines is at the top of the list. At almost every corner of the Metropolis you see internet shops and, if you have a wifi-enabled phone, you would be able to identify so many “hotspots” around.

I know of no study which has identified the reasons for our nation being so wired and connected in this part of the world. I reckon three possible key variables that might explain this: our people’s literacy, the relative media freedom in our polity, and the fact that almost ten percent of the Philippine population are migrants and part of the so-called Filipino diaspora. The families of our migrant workers, I am sure, comprise a significant market for these internet shops which have mushroomed across the country. To my mind, this is suggested by the mere fact that the popularity of photo sharing has reportedly increased by 46% in the country in one year, and this is largely due to Facebook.

Moreover, internet access is rather cheap in our islands. I found one internet shop in Romblon in the Visayas which allowed me to surf the net for 3 pesos per minute. E-tingi. That was over three years ago. Internet usage rates have gone even lower in the last few years with better telephony.

With a population of 101,833,938 (year 2011) cramped in an area three hundred thousand square kilometre-wide, the Philippines had 29.7 million Internet users as of June 10, 2010. That’s a sizeable chunk by any recknoning—29 percent of the total population. Consider that PNoy had a 6-million winning margin to ascend to the Presidency, with but 15 million votes going for him.

Now, almost 21.5 million Filipino netizens are on the most popular "book" -- Facebook. Social networking is such a hit among us Filipinos, the Philippines is now nicknamed “The Social Networking Capital of the World.”

What interests me most in these developments is the potential that it offers for governance, especially in promoting the good kind, and facilitating local development. Take the issue of transparency, for instance. Last year, DILG Chief Jesse Robredo reiterated calls for local government units to heed laws that require more transparency in our local governments.

Robredo, an accomplished local governor himself, released a memorandum last year that cites the Local Government Code of 1991 and Republic Act 9184, the Government Procurement Reform Act, both of which mandates the full disclosure of local budget and finances, and bids and public offerings. The Robredo memo reminds all local governors that Section 354 of the Local Government Code specifically requires the posting within 30 days from the end of each fiscal year, “in at least three publicly accessible and conspicuous places in the local government unit,” of the “summary of all revenues collected and funds received including the appropriations and disbursements of such funds during the preceding fiscal year.” RA 9184, for its part, calls for “the posting of the invitation to bid, notice of award, notice to proceed and approved contract in the procuring entity's premises, in newspapers of general circulation, the Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System (PhilGEPS) and the website of the procuring entity.” Under related DILG guidelines, governors, city and municipal mayors are directed to publicly disclose their transactions especially regarding their annual budget items.

There you go. There, gleaming, lies the potential power of information technology, of the internet. Post governance information in “publicly accessible and conspicuous places” the laws say. These days, what can potentially be most public and most conspicuous now than the virtual halls of the Net?

Information, it is said, is power, I posit that this is even truer today: Information technology is power. Just post those government documents as public information on the Net and see how our government can be most transparent. With transparency, comes so many other possibilities...

We are not just the top social networking nation. We are potentially the most transparent polity in the word.

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