From texters to spammers . . .

The Philippines is the second biggest source of spam messages in the Asia Pacific Region and Japan, this according to the Internet Security Threat Report of renown anti-virus outfit Symantec.

Our consolation is that we were edged out by Uzbekistan from being number 1. The Symantec report revealed that our personal computers are hosting spam zombies that are manipulated by hackers to perform malicious attacks toward unknown users, by sending bogus messages which aim to paralyze a service or crash a network and infect it with “bot,” a search-engine supporter that digs out information in a web site for future indexing. Spams are rampant because of the growth of broadband usage, number of internet cafés, gamers online, small and medium enterprises and average computer users, the report added.

Pinoys, especially the young ones have found another way of making money the easy way by acting as accomplice of professional underground attackers. Once the quota on email sent is reached, spammers get paid.

For the unsuspecting internet users out there, take extra precaution - by installing or updating your anti-virus and anti-spyware; and be wary of unsolicited emails.

Ours is a remittance-driven economy

The assertions of our economic managers that the Philippine economy has strong economic fundamentals and that explains why GDP has grown by 7.5% as of the second quarter of 2007, is half-true. The other reason why our economy remains afloat is the dollar remittances of our 8 million strong OFWs.

These remittances estimated at about a billion dollars a month sustain the purchasing power of at least one-fourth of our population; contribute largely to our burgeoning dollar reserves; and create a huge demand for housing and subdivision development.

If we can sustain the growth attributed to our OFWs, we are on our way to rebuilding the socio-economic and political structure of our society. By economically emancipating the families of OFWs, we are in effect, building a strong middle class that cannot be coerced and intimidated by unscrupulous and power-hungry politicians.

High literacy vis-a-vis economic advancement.

We usually tend to equate a high literacy rate with economic development. Not quite in the Philippines. We have a very high basic literacy rate (94.6%) and yet a great many of Filipinos remain poor. The June 2007 self-rated survey of the Social Weather Station (SWS) reveals that 47% (estimated at 8 million) Filipinos think they are poor.

I came across a research paper by Canieso-Doronila of UP which points to the negative correlation between our high literacy rate and economic advancement. Canieso-Doronila points out that this can be "explained by the fact that literacy skills taught in schools do not extend to abilities to perform the multiple social and cognitive tasks needed to survive in society today".

So what's the root of the problem? Canieso-Doronila emphasized that "such a reported high literacy rate does not assume abilities to think critically and abstractly because, in early formal education, local knowledge and cultural practices have historically been shut out by Western-influenced education, first through a medium (English) which has very limited use in most communities and, second, amidst unequal access to quality education". These twin problems of medium of instruction and educational inequality in early schooling intensify the disparity between the elite and the masses.

RP ranks 4th as call center locator

A study by a US-based consultancy firm, A.T. Kearney ranks the Philippines at 4th place on call center locations with a total of 140,000 seats. Not bad considering that we've even edged out Singapore which is at 5th place.

The top ten on the rankings are: India, China, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Czech Republic, Chile, Canada and Brazil.

The rankings according to A.T. Kearney's Global Services Location Index were based on 40 measurements in three categories namely, cost, people skills and availability, and business environment.

Things that make us proud as a Filipino . . .

Too often majority of us get stuck on the negative side. The bombast that we see on TV, read in the dailies, hear on the radio day in and day out have fallen us prey to this negativism and led many to believe that there's no hope for this country.

One Pinoy manager of a Intel has this piece of advice: "Let us all help our country by balancing the negative with the positive especially when we talk to foreigners, whether based here or abroad. Looking back and comparing the Philippines today and 1995, I was struck by how much our country has progressed physically".

He went on to enumerate some of the significant developments that have befall our country that could reverse the tide of negativism.

1. INTEL has been in the Philippines for 28 years. The Philippines plant is where Intel's most advanced products are launched, including the Pentium IV. By the end of 2002, Philippine operations became Intel's biggest assembly and testing operations worldwide.

2. TEXAS INSTRUMENTS has been operating in Baguio for over 20 years. The Baguio plant is the largest producer of DSP chips in the world. DSP chips are the brains behind cellphones. TI's Baguio plant produces the chip that powers 100% of all NOKIA cellphones and 80% of Erickson cellphones in the world.

3. TOSHIBA laptops are produced in Santa Rosa, Laguna.

4. If you drive a BENZ, BMW, or a VOLVO, there is a good chance that the ABS system in your car was made in the Philippines .

5. TREND-MICRO, makers of one of the top anti virus software PC-Cillin develops its "cures" for viruses right here in Eastwood Libis, Quezon City . When a virus breaks in any computer system in the world, they try to find a solution within 45 minutes of finding the virus.

6. Today a majority of the top ten U.S. Call Center firms in the U.S. have set up operations in the Philippines . This is one area in which I believe we are the best in the world in terms of value for money.

7. America Online (AOL) has 1,000 people in Clark answering 90% of AOL's global e-mail inquiries.

8. PROCTOR & GAMBLE has over 400 people right here in Makati (average age 23 years) doing back-up office work to their Asian operations including finance, accounting, Human Resources and payments processing.

9. Among many other things it does for its regional operations network in the Asia-Pacific region here in Manila, CITIBANK also does its global ATM programming locally.

10. This is the first year ever that the Philippines will be exporting cars in quantity courtesy of FORD Philippines.

11. The government is shedding off graft and corruption slowly but surely. This is the first time in our history that a former president is in jail and facing charges of plunder. Despite all odds, we are still pursuing the ill-gotten wealth of Marcos now enjoyed by his unrepentant heirs.

I'm sharing this information to all pinoys out there who still believe that there's hope for this country.

Murdering productivity.

One of the advantages of getting into the net is that knowledge sharing is further enhanced, and opening your email at the start of the day can be very exciting with the prospect of acquiring new bits of information about anything under the sun. Here's one forwarded by a friend:

Top 10 Ways To Murder Creativity
1. Always pretend to know more than everybody around you.
2. Get employees to fill in time sheets.
3. Run daily checks on progress of everyone's work.
4. Ensure that highly qualified people do mundane work for long periods.
5. Put barriers up between departments.
6. Don't speak personally to employees, except when announcing increased targets, shortened deadlines and tightened cost restraints.
7. Ask for a 200-page document to justify every new idea.
8. Call lots of meetings.
9. Place the biggest emphasis on the budget.
10. Kill any idea that is not your own

Blog for protection of marine resources.

A friend sent me this link to a blog: www.oneocean.org/fishblog. The site was developed for the "Fishes Feed Us" international forum, a project of the Arts and Science Collaborations, Inc. based in New York.

The blog site is an online youth dialogue whose purpose is to put a human face on the destruction of marine fisheries and ecosystems, resulting in the decline in fish supply. What so special about the site is that four high school students from Masbate National High School, Philippines participated in the online dialogue along with students from Malaysia, India and USA. The blog entries of the two students from Masbate, Philip Joseph Alarcon and Kristine Yentyl Esber were chosen as monologues that were presented at the United Nations Plaza in New York City last June 5 for the World Environment Day celebration. It's very encouraging to know our own youths breaking the digital divide to participate in this worthy undertaking.

OFW Quickfacts

According to the POEA (short for Philippine Overseas Employment Authority), the number of documented OFWs in 2006 have risen by 1.4% compared to that in 2005 - from 1,204,862 to 1,221,417. Of this figure, 866,090 or 71% are land-based and 335,321 or 29% are seafarers. Our OFWs are deployed in 197 countries.

Paid in full . . .

Did you know that after 32 years the government (of my dear Old Philippines) has finally paid off its loan used to construct the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. The Plant which was never operational since its completion amidst accusation of "kickbacks" by the administration of the deposed Ferdinand Marcos and the fact that the site lies within the earthquake belt - has caused pinoy taxpayers some Php 212-B or US$460-M. That's precious money gone the drain which could otherwise have been spent to energize all barangays in the country.

Welcome to my third blog site. Everyone's invited to share their views or comments on any of my posts.