The 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit, held in Cagayan de Oro City last 24 October 2009, despite a rather poor showing in the number of participants, was another feather in the cap of the MB Community. The CDO Bloggers group displayed their cohesiveness and enthusiasm and unfailing energy to pull off the event quite admirably.
The highlight of this year’s Summit was the involvement of the Deputy Chief of Mission of the U.S. Embassy, Ms. Leslie Bassett, who delivered an eye-opening and inspiring presentation about the contributions her government has made to the progress of Mindanao. Ambassador Kristie Kenney, who is a blogger herself, graciously sent in a video greeting as well.
There were only about 80 Summiteers who attended MBS3 (not counting the members of the core group, organizers and speakers); however, it was good to see first-timers and bloggers from never-before-represented cities such as Ozamis and Dipolog. It is one of the objectives of Mindanao Bloggers to see more and more places in Mindanao become part of the Community.
Friends from Metro Manila graced the 3rd Summit, as resource speakers and as guests. We are ever grateful to Aileen Apolo and Janette Toral for the high-value content that they have been contributing to the Summit ever since its inception.
In behalf of the Community, we would like to express our grateful appreciation of the warm welcome extended to the bloggers of Mindanao by Mayor Tinnex Jaraula. The good mayor delivered a rousing speech about what bloggers could accomplish towards addressing issues affecting the Philippine South.
There were quite a few politicians who joined the bloggers at MBS3 — this was expected, owing to the upcoming elections early next year. It was good for the bloggers to hear directly from the candidates about their political platforms and advocacies. However, it should be reiterated that the Mindanao Bloggers Community is a non-partisan entity and does not endorse any candidate or political party.
What made MBS3 unique was the hosting of the Philippine Blog Awards 2009 – Mindanao Region on the same day. This was the first time that the PBA has held a regional awards effort, and we would like to give honor to the Awardees:
Present during the Awards Night were PBA President Juned Sonido, and Coy Caballes, who directed all three Awards Nights (the main event in Quezon City, and the ones in Cebu and Cagayan de Oro). Also attending MBS3 and PBA’09-Mindanao was Jay De Jesus of TitikPilipino.com.
In order to apprise the assembled participants of the latest developments in established blogging communities across the island, four speakers presented the highlights of the past year’s activities in their localities. Dr. Jaime Haw Jr. did the presentation for Davao City; Avel Manansala for General Santos City; Ryann Elumba for the Zamboanga Peninsula; and Edu Ragpala for the host city.
At the conclusion of MBS 2009, the next host city for the 4th Mindanao Bloggers Summit was announced to a cheering audience. Zamboanga City will be the destination of the bloggers of Mindanao (and friends) in October 2010.
Kudos to the bloggers of Cagayan de Oro! And see you all in Zamboanga next year!
In continuing my advocacy for the adoption of the world’s #1 blogging sofware & CMS across Mindanao, I’ll be conducting an advanced training seminar on the deployment, utilization & management of WordPress this 25th of July (Saturday) at Cagayan de Oro City.
Specifically, the following are the topics to be covered:
Cagayan de Oro is a wired city, with lots of free-wifi hotspots all over the place, and a growing number of bloggers and online content writers — the perfect setting for promoting the use of the most flexible content management engine there is. Moreover, the city is the appointed host of the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit, which will be happening on 24 October 2009.
The WP training seminar will be held at Coffee Works, from 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM. (Please bookmark this post for updates.)
Registration fee is ₱500 per person (to be collected at the door on the seminar date). Please click here to sign up!
I look forward to meeting with the CDO Bloggers very soon!
Sponsored By: 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit - 27 Oct 2007, Davao City
This is to officially announce the venue and host of this year’s summit of Mindanao’s bloggers: Cagayan de Oro City. I am certain that the bloggers of Cagayan de Oro will be able to organize and stage the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit successfully. This year, we are aiming for more meaningful and practical topics.
Spearheading the CDO bloggers’ group is ChiQ Montes, who is a Web developer and WordPress themes designer. She was also one of the tireless volunteers of WordCamp Philippines 2008, held in Manila last 6 September 2008.
As with the past two Summits, MBS3 will be held sometime in October. I will leave it to ChiQ and her group to announce further details — exact date(s), venue, program, etc. — as they get finalized. I sincerely hope that we will see even more bloggers from more places in Mindanao (and beyond) attending the Summit in 2009.
In behalf of the Mindanao Bloggers core group — Andrew, Ria, MiGs™ and Winston — I’d like to extend our congratulations to the CDO Bloggers! You have our full confidence and support!
My trip to Cagayan de Oro City last 7 to 9 December was very fruitful, as I was able to meet up with a good number of bloggers there. This is the second incarnation of an active bloggers group in Cagayan de Oro — the first group, the members of whom I met last June 2007, has unfortunately fallen by the wayside as those bloggers have either gone to other places or dropped out of the blogosphere altogether.
This group is now being led by Chiq Montes, who was one of the tireless volunteers at WordCamp Philippines 2008. Last 8 December, I also got to know Goma, Bang, Ding, Cloyd, Robstroy (who was also at MBS2), Amelia (whom I had already met last June 2007), and Mike Abonitalla.
They’re a fun bunch, and they seem to have just the right amount of enthusiasm to be able to sustain their presence in Northern Mindanao. They were very eager to learn about the experiences of the Davao and General Santos groups. The CDO bloggers are rarin’ to be a much more active part of the Mindanao Bloggers community.
It is indeed remarkable that groups of people who are geographically, socially and even religiously disparate can come together as one cohesive community. Beyond the cities of Davao, General Santos, Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro, other areas are now coming online: Dipolog, Malaybalay / Valencia, Kidapawan…. I just wish I could touch base with the bloggers of all these places very soon!!
The CDO group is obviously very excited about the prospect of hosting the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit. Well, the core group of MB originators (Andrew, Ria, Migs, Winston and yours truly) are going to arrive at a decision very soon.
Cagayan de Oro is one very progressive city. At a casual glance, it’s very hard to tell whether Davao City is still in the lead in terms of development. Population- and geography-wise, Davao is still much bigger, but CDO is clearly making large strides towards economic and social progress. As a destination, the city of golden friendship is more than ready to host the Summit in October 2009.
Kudos and more power to the bloggers of CDO!!!

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