OneWebDay on Sept. 22, 2009 is indeed history in the making for the Philippines and for all the 24 million Filipino internet users, whose interests PIUS represents.

It’s your ‘TYPE’ that’s it.

We therefore call on every Internet user to join us in celebrating the OneWebDay by contributing your share in teaching others how to use a computer and access the Internet.

Be part of history in the making because we are celebrating OneWebDay for the first time in the Philippines. Although there are lofty reasons why we celebrate it, but we are celebrating on the same date as other countries mainly because of what is called QWERTY logic, which means you have no choice but to follow an emerging international convention.

QWERTY represents the first six letters from the left of the top row of letters on a typewriter. It was designed and patented by Christopher Sholes in 1874 and sold to E. Remington & Sons in the same year, when it first appeared in typewriters. Legend has it that QWERTY was designed as you could type the word “Typewriter” with your fingers not ever leaving the top row of letters.

More than the advocacy being pushed by the Philippine Internet Users Society (PIUS) , which is “Empowering Everyone Thru Computer and Internet Access,” is another advocacy of reviving an old traditional cultural trait of the Filipino, which is now fast vanishing because of the onslaught of free market competition.

Law of the jungle. In the liberal free market competition, there is a tendency for individuals to be reduced to the level of the beast in the dog-eat-dog, survival of the fittest, law of the economic jungle system, where everyone competes against each other for jobs, resources and opportunities.

The harsh competition in this so-called law of the jungle has triggered the rise of a perverted culture of ultra individualism and existentialism that is slowly eroding basic institutions and even the moral fabric that has kept family and society together. Even the humanist tradition of being concern for others, for the common good and for the general welfare, is now also slowly vanishing.

Let’s ‘FIX’ the ‘PIUS’ misimpression

After setting up recently the Philippine Internet Users Society with its acronym PIUS, some friends     queried us if this group has got something to do with VATICAN in Rome, probably referring to Pope PIUS.

But we do have people in our midst, whom we call in the local language as “BATIKAN,” which simply means good and expert in their particular craft. If we are not yet at that level, we do aim that everyone becomes a “BATIKAN.”