 Verma
and Romeo Cayabyab, Rom Zamora,distinguished guests, mga kababayan, ladies and gentlemen:
Today a new President of the Philippines is being sworn into office in Manila. It marks
a special moment for Filipinos. Without entering into the merits or demerits of the new
head of state, let me offer a cause for pride over this occasion. This current event
demonstrates very clearly that the Filipinos have made the electoral system democratic.
Unlike in past elections, there is no disputing that Joseph 'Erap' Estrada, was the
people's choice. The voters did not vote for him because they were bribed or intimidated.
The people's will was not frustrated by electoral fraud. The people's choice was freely
voted to the highest office in the archipelago. While we may question the people's
rationale for making their choice, there is no disputing that this was a choice they made
themselves. To further confirm this point, the electorate voted for a Vice President from
a different opposition party, a young woman at that, instead of simply ticking off
Estrada's own Vice Presidential candidate.
Democracy is alive and well in the Philippines and as far as the electoral system goes,
it functions. We are also celebrating our first centennial as an independent republic.
More accurately we are marking the occasion when General Emilio Aguinaldo proclaimed the
birth of the republic, complete with constitution, flag and national anthem. Filipinos
claim to be the first Asian nation to revolt against a Western colonial power.
Coinciding with these commemorative events, we welcome emanila this
afternoon.The Net brings up many things into one's lap. The recent violent incidents in
Indonesia for example, brought to my attention a young Chinese girl and her family who had
been harassed by rioters, and I emailed my sympathies to her. Before I could type www,
I was deluged with a frenzied debate among email writers from all over the world on this
lady's plight and the racial issue in Indonesia. This was followed by another bombardment
of frantic emails clogging up my PC, saying "please get me off your email list"
when I had never sent them a single word, and I wanted nothing more than to get off their
own email list. But you learn many things.
Apropos to this auspicious occasion, let me share just one gem called "The
experts" which a photojournalist friend in Manila electronically passed on to me, and
I have heavily reworked for you: "In 1943, Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, observed:
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." In 1949, the
Magazine Popular Mechanics made the following fearless forecast:"Computers in the
future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons." "Eight years later, in 1957 the editor
in charge of business books for Prentice Hall assured his readers: "I have travelled
the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people, and I can assure
you that data processing is a fad that won't last out the year."
Just twenty one years ago, in 1977, Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of
Digital Equipment Corp., declared: "There is no reason anyone would want a computer
in their home." Then there was Steve Jobs who approached Atari to get support for his
and Steve Wozniak's personal computer: "So we went to Atari and said, 'Hey, we've got
this amazing thing, even built with some of your parts, and what do you think about
funding us? Or we'll give it to you. We just want to do it. Pay our salary, we'll come
work for you.' And they said, 'No.' So then we went to Hewlett-Packard, and they said,
'Hey, we don't need you. You haven't got through college yet.'" So they put up Apple.
A century before, in 1876, a Western Union internal memo read: "This 'telephone' has
too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device
is inherently of no value to us." And when David Sarnoff urged his associates to
invest in radio in the 1920's, he was told: "The wireless music box has no imaginable
commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" Which is
more or less what happened to a musical group with the funny name of The Beatles in 1962,
when they approached Decca Recording and were told: "We don't like their sound, and
guitar music is on the way out."
Fully aware that words, indeed, have a way of coming back to haunt you, I cast caution
to the winds, because it is truly my privilege to welcome www.manila.com to
the global information village. They have cast their boat on the wave of the future.
Senior citizens like myself may get as far as the threshold, but no farther, because
the future belongs to the young. But even from this limited view from the threshold, I can
see a million possibilities for this medium. As a journalist it has put me in touch with
the world outside national boundaries. I have dug up research material in U.P. Los Banos,
Philippines, in Spain, and in America.
As an artist I can see it overcoming the limitations of a painting on a canvas in a
Museum wall; as a writer, I see it as the successor of the Gutenberg press, and as a
photographer, I wonder about the fate of photojournalism, and the authenticity that stamp
of reality once enjoyed by photography in the past.
For the Filipino community here in Australia it is probably the answer to the lack of
communication with one another; locked apart as we are from each other by the distance of
suburbs, national boundaries, and from our homeland in the Philippines and our friends and
relatives in various parts of the world.
We can create our own Filipino world within this global multimedia village; we can
reaffirm our identity across continents, across time and space. Congratulations to Verma
and Romeo Cayabyab and to Rom Zamora for exploring the frontiers of possibilities and for
highly imaginative and polished computer graphic work.
The Filipino community, and I dare say Australia, is proud of your enterprising spirit
in a new technology. As an artist, I cannot speak for the present commercial success of
such a venture, but definitely yours is a technological achievement.
Mabuhay to www. emanila.com
May you prosper and spread the word that the Filipino living in Oz is alive and well,
enjoying the blessings of freedom and daring to visit new frontiers of the imagination. |
