I Am Blogie

Several Davao bloggers and I had the privilege to meet in person the U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney, this morning at the Ateneo de Davao University college library. At one point, we were talking about traveling across Mindanao, so I mentioned to her about Matt’s visit to Davao in September 2008. Me: “Matt Mullenweg [...]Copyright © 2009, Oliver Robillo.
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The U.S. ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney, is often in Mindanao, attending to the various projects and commitments that her government has in the Philippine South. But this time, she made a special stop while in Davao just to meet and get to know some of the bloggers here.

Last year, I had a chance to meet the U.S. embassy’s press attaché and spokesperson, Rebecca Thompson, in Tagaytay for the Media Nation conference. Then a couple of weeks ago, her office contacted me to get a group of bloggers together for a meet-up with Amb. Kenney during her brief stay in Davao City. I thought it would be good to have a diverse collection of bloggers, and I came up with this seven: Jaime Haw (Apple® fanboy); Migs Hipolito (mobile technologies); Ria Jose (politics, lifestyle); Rhodilee Jean Dolor (family, business); Sarah Matalam (community work, motherhood); Lyle Santos (nursing, Internet); and Brendel Balaga (nursing studies).

During the very informal — in fact, very up close and personal — get-together with the ambassador today, we came to know a personable and gregarious woman. Far from what all of us were expecting, this charming lady appeared very down-to-earth, and loves basketball; she can even keep up with any sports fan on the latest in PBA stuff. (She was practically gushing when she told us that she was going to do the meet-and-greet for Kobe Bryant, who’s scheduled to come to the Philippines soon.) By the way, she also got herself certified in scuba diving here in the Philippines.

She also blogs herself: check it out. While her blog is her own, she said it’s started to take the shape of an information portal for the embassy’s activities. For her own personal use, she’s on Facebook. Isn’t it quite refreshing to know that someone in her stature keeps abreast of Internet trends? So we couldn’t resist telling her about Plurk and how Filipino bloggers are engrossed in it. She does know about Twitter, but she said she prefers Facebook.

We had the opportunity to tell the ambassador about our blogs and about the Mindanao Bloggers community, in which she seems to be genuinely interested. The U.S. government and ours, in efforts to establish long-lasting peace in Mindanao, collaborate on development projects in the areas of education, agriculture, environment, health, prosperity, human rights. I suppose Kenney was keen on knowing how our community was contributing to the upliftment of Mindanao’s image through our various blogs.

Meeting Kristie Kenney, who has gone to more parts of Mindanao than I have, has inspired me to forge on and try to achieve my goal this year: to visit as many places on the island as I can. I asked her what places in Mindanao fascinated her, and she related how she was amazed by the tuna port of General Santos, as well as by the beauty of Tawi-Tawi and Marawi. How I wish I could go deeper south and see more bloggers’ communities in those areas get organized!

This was the first time that the head of a diplomatic mission to the Philippines has gone out of their way to talk to bloggers. And I hope it won’t be the last. We’ve invited Amb. Kenney to be our guest of honor at the Mindanao Bloggers Summit in Cagayan de Oro this October, and she has accepted in principle. It’s not certain yet what follow-up activities might happen between the MB community and the American embassy in the future, but I do expect a continued exchange of information at the very least.

After about 3 years in existence, and after all the activities that have given exposure to the MB community, this has to be the most fulfilling one for us yet. In behalf of the bloggers of Mindanao, I’d like to thank Ambassador Kristie and her staff for the wonderful morning today! Hopefully, this October again!

Copyright © 2009, Oliver Robillo.
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