HAPPY WEEKEND

From the Boondocks
GINA DIZON

DHAKA, Bangladesh-- I like this blog site, From the Boondocks, administered by Bill Bilig. To go to this site, turn on your computer, log on to the internet and go to www.igorotblogger.blogspot.com. While it is very Cordillera, it is updated of events especially happening in the five provinces of the region.

Moving with the times, I noticed the blog posts issues about anti-corruption drives like its road watch on projects going on along Halsema road. From the blog site, suggestions are forwarded and discussed and positive actions consequently arrived so that the talking will not be No Action Talk Only.

Comments from readers of the blog site are also asked about lack of water in the Mountain Province . What happened to the touted water projects and has there been a trickle of water from those much awaited pipelines? It would really be good to talk about this issue as water is a dire need for every one and especially in towns where tourism is equated with water facilities equally in the same manner that locals need water too. The blog also features what public officials like Ifugao Gov. Teddy Baguilat tells about curbing corruption and jueteng, policy advocacy and eco-cultural tourism.

I came to know of the recent post about a P500,000 award for anyone who knows information that would lead to the arrest of the aleged gunman of slain Rep. Luis Bersamin Jr of Abra.
The blog also has its postings about the ‘uglification’ of Baguio City by artist-writer Chit Balmaceda, getting readers aware about what is happening to dear old Kafagway which has now become ‘ugly’ with its many infrastructure projects which spring from out of nowhere including a cement tree atop Session Road.

This way, the e-Abra or the e-Mt Province or the e-Ifugao or the e-Kafagway wherever he is in the part of the world will know what is happening in his hometown. The wonders really of information technology or what is commonly known as internet has made the world smaller and faster in communicating with friends and loved ones wherever they maybe.

Sourcing its news from weekly Cordillera regional papers including Northern Philippine Times, Northern Dispatch, Baguio Midland Courier to national news including GMA news and the daily Sunstar, From the Boondocks also gets its updates from other sites blogged by Cordilleran worldwide. Click on the site and get to know the bloggers, anonymous or not, linked to igorotblogger.

Sometimes I get fresh news from the Cordillera which did not appear in the regional papers. Just where Bill Bilig gets his sources speaks of the journalist in him. I got fresh news about the recent death in Toronto , Canada of caregiver Jocelyn Dulnuan from Ifugao while national and local news haven’t yet printed the story. This link by igorotblogger got national and local news writing about the story.

Earlier, I got the info about Abra students having been ‘abducted’ by military elements in the borders of Sagada and Abra, in the blog site, while regional papers and even people in Sagada did not know anything about the abduction.

This blog site is also interesting with its postings on Cordillera achievers including Blessing Taclobao from Tadian who won in a US-based spelling contest. It also posts our very own Star Struck survivor Marky Cielo from Bauko and now two Cordillerans who are vying for celebrity posts in Korea .

While the blog site is good for students who wish to research about anything about the Cordillera- from what is historical to what is new- it is also good for those who attempt personal reflections from the mushy diarist, the bizarre intellectual, the socialist- ideologue, the straight-cut political analyst to the cold critic.

This blog, Smorgasboard of Random Thoughts by Atty Cheryl Daytec-Yangot is something refreshing. It really takes a busy lawyer to sit down, let the mind roam and soar and write literary attempts while busy with cases.

Not only do you read the site’s contents, you could also post your comments about recent or old issues and rave all you want, whether you like what you are reading or you just don’t care, no problem. Reactions and comments come in incised, mild, some sarcastic, some heavy, some loaded, some encouraging, some depressing, yet in the end, there will be somehow a constructive solution with the Igorot in the dap-ay/ator speaking in us; and further will get some wise and good insights from Bill Bilig too.

For the Cordilleran/Igorot bloggers and net surfers, and anybody interested to know about what is happening in the Cordillera via internet, log on more to igorotblogger.blogspot.com.
It’s a site for the student, the yuppie, the 40’s, the 50’s, the retired, the bored, the busy, the realist, the romantic, the optimist, the pessimist, the pragmatist, the dreamer, the egoist, the altruist, the Igorot far away from home or the Igorot at home. Whoever you are, one thing is sure, you would like to connect and get to know what’s on, what’s in, ‘From the Boondocks’.