I have to admit that I started to become jaded in the concept of analyzing and studying the Pinoy blogosphere several months ago. I remember talking to Tiffy about it over cake. My take was pretty basic – that, as a collective voice, the voice of the blogosphere is the voice of the middle class. My main argument is that blogging is a middle class activity. Access to resources such as technology, time, and education is a luxury that only the middle class can afford.

I was close to trashing my plans on doing a thesis on Filipino political blogs but it seems that I have been reinvigorated by this sudden surge of opinionated expression that puts traditional media to shame. The issue is just so full of insight on politics and social media. The blogosphere has been set on fire because of the alleged brawl involving the DAR secretary’s son and bodyguards.

In this issue, no one can deny the power of the blogosphere’s voice as we just witnessed that it can even move traditional media to make this an issue worth reporting. I have been trying to take a critical look at this whole issue, paying attention to what is being said by bloggers. It’d quite interesting to examine the discourse and interpret the forces that influence each statement. Some have elevated the discussion to the levels of civics and law. Still, many have judged the issue based on fundamental sense of right and wrong.

Personally, I judge the issue by the basic sense of morality and empathy. No one deserves what the de la Pazes have gone through. The truth must prevail and justice must be served. We must all damn this feudal hegemony that still plagues our democracy.

***

NOTE: Some ideas in this part might be inappropriate given the freshness of the situation and might piss off some people. I’m just placing it here for recording purposes. Take with a grain of salt.

The devil’s advocate in me asks why have we raised this issue to such proportion. Could it be possible that the sudden weight of this issue particularly across the blogosphere is due to personal networks? That we care because this case makes the injustice of society more apparent and real because it happened to one of us (the middle class/the blogosphere)?

Dissecting the issue, it can be said that class has barely got to do with the core issue. What the Pangandamans did was morally wrong, if not, criminal. Still, zooming out and looking at the whole discourse spawned by the incident, it is hard to dissociate the possible influence of social class to the blogosphere’s outrage.

Maybe this comment is quite tasteless and inappropriate given the circumstances (especially since the comment was made within a forum involving people who empathize) but it can make one think whether BrianB’s reaction is no different from people’s general Oh-that’s-life-in-the-Philippines-shit happens-deal-with-it reactions after reading news about some poor nameless bloke from the slums getting killed on some esquinita or some politico pocketing millions.

Many have not agreed to (perhaps offended by) my argument that there exists a blogging principalia in Filipino blogging community. Now, it seems that I can resurrect that argument. Doesn’t this latest issue show us that we still live in a (semi-)feudal society and that even the issue that the blogging principalia deems important suddenly becomes as such?

This case, I think, will prove to be the test for the integrity of the blogosphere’s collective voice. Will we be able to follow-through on this? If class is not the issue, will we then start taking a critical eye to every issue regardless of who is involved?

Check out these other posts:

1. Round 2: Malu Fernandez versus the Pinoy blogosphere
2. A principalia in the Pinoy blogoshpere?
3. What is mainstream media’s beef with blogging?
4. Not even campaign period and it already sucks
5. We haven’t really gone anywhere