Last weekend I faced my fear of the water by going white water rafting in the Cagayan de Oro River with my old friend and a new one. I was quite scared at first but after the initial four rapids, I got used to it and had so much fun! I even jumped off from that big rock and dunked into the water!!!
Thanks to Odessa and Anya for sharing that experience with me and more thanks to the river guides who made sure we were not harmed.
Until then...
I want to go rafting again and again and again and again... Hahahaha!
Music: Blur - Song 2 Remix Photos: Kagay White Water Rafting Tours
(Cagayan de Oro City, Mindanao, Philippines – October 21, 2009) – It’s all systems go for the Cagayan de Oro Bloggers (CDO Bloggers) as they play host to the much-awaited Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3, an annual gathering of Mindanao-based bloggers, IT industry experts, community leaders and new media advocates, on October 24, 2009 at Pearlmont Inn, Limketkai Drive, Cagayan de Oro City. Roughly 300 bloggers are expected to attend this year’s summit.
With the theme, “Mindanao: Bag-Uhon Ang Panan-aw,” (Changing The Way People See Mindanao) the event aims to uphold the beauty and strength of Mindanao, to highlight the diverse cultures and fascinating tourist spots that are uniquely Mindanao and to provide a platform where bloggers and other new media practitioners can discuss concerns related to Mindanao – all with the help of new and emerging technologies.
“Mindanao is the home of everything fascinating or in bloggers’ lingo – bloggable. Through the Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3, it is the hope of the CDO Bloggers, along with our partners and generous sponsors, that we listen to knowledgeable resource persons, meet other Mindanaoan bloggers, share and maximize all of our skills and resources and adopt tried and tested practices that can help us to fully promote Mindanao and for us to become better bloggers as well,” emphasized ChiQ Montes, president of CDO Bloggers.
“Of course, we also want all of the participants to have a good time and experience the sights and sounds of Cagayan de Oro,” Montes added.
Montes said that apart from Mindanaoan bloggers, the summit will also see the participation of some bloggers from Luzon and Visayas.
Expected to grace the summit are United States Embassy’s new Deputy Chief of Mission Leslie Bassett, Atty. Adel Tamano, Agusan Lone District Rep. Rodolfo “Ompong” Plaza and Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Constantino "Tinnex" Jaraula.
Considered unprecedented in the Philippine blogosphere, a top ranking United States Embassy dignitary is set to deliver the keynote address. Bassett’s trip to CDO will be her first trip to Mindanao since assuming office in June. She previously served as DCM in Mexico.
“We are deeply honored. We’re certain that the summit participants will be delighted to meet her and we can’t wait for her to see our beautiful city,” Montes said.
Other speakers during the whole-day affair include Cagayan de Oro City Mayor Constanton "Tinnex" Jaraula, Agusan Lone District Rep. Rodolfo “Ompong” Plaza and Atty. Adel Tamano.
Google’s Philippine representative Aileen Apolo, whose talk will focus on beginners, Digital Filipino’s Janette Toral, who will discuss blog advertising and Lyle Santos, who will talk about making money online will also be present. Representatives of other blogger groups including those in Davao City, General Santos City and Zamboanga will also give updates.
After the summit proper, participants have the choice of joining either the city tour (Xavier University Museum, Cathedral, Divine Mercy Shrine, Opol Aviary, Limketkai Mall) or the whitewater rafting adventure.
Also happening on October 24, right after the MBS 3, is the Philippine Blog Awards – Mindanao awarding ceremonies.
CDO Bloggers, Inc., a group duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is the lead organizer of this year’s Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3. Previous summits took place in Davao City and General Santos City.
The Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3 is generously supported by SMART Communications Inc, Nokia, Syntactics, Inc., STI, Rafting Adventure Philippines, MakatiAve.com, Majesty Sales Center, Havaianas Philippines, OLX Philippines Free Classifieds, Clara Shoppe, ASTERISK Events and Communications, RG & K Construction, Paguia’s Cottages, ThePacificaCompanies.com, The Site, Spruce, The City Government of Cagayan de Oro, Office of CDO First District Rep. Rolando “Klarex” Uy, SM City Cagayan de Oro, Ultra Craft Advertising Corporation, Magnet Advertising, Provincial Government of Misamis Oriental and the Mindanao Bloggers community. Media partners include Papa Ardie’s Concepz, STI, ABS CBN, MOR 91.9 and HOT FM 106.3.
For more information about the Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3, log on to http://www.mbscdo.com
About CDO Bloggers CDOBloggers or Cagayan de Oro Bloggers, Inc. is a duly SEC-registered organization that promotes Cagayan de Oro through blogging. Among the group’s goals are to create impact in society through blogging, to help promote Mindanao to the world as a bustling and peaceful land, to promote Cagayan De Oro City and Kagay-anons around the world with a sense of pride and to use blogging as a media platform.
The CDO Bloggers group is the main organizer of the Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3 (MBS 3). For more information about MBS 3, log on to http://www.mbscdo.com
For more information about CDO Bloggers, visit http://www.cdobloggers.com or send email to cdobloggersinc(@)gmail.com
About Mindanao Bloggers Mindanao Bloggers aims to unify the island through this exciting new medium — the way of the blog — thereby promoting deeper understanding of our different cultures and beliefs. Thus, it is hoped that this community blog will help in presenting to the world at large the true beauty of the Philippine South, as well as the marvelous diversity of the peoples of Mindanao. For more information about Mindanao Bloggers, visit http://www.mindanaobloggers.com
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FOR MEDIA INQUIRIES, PLEASE CONTACT: ASTERISK Events and Communicationshttp://www.asteriskeventsandcommunications.comMobile number: (+63) 919 238 6575 / (+63) 922 478 5218Email address: asteriskEC@gmail.com
Mindanao is a big, beautiful island and it has a lot of interesting sites, people, and traditions. Since pre-colonial times, the island of Mindanao has captivated many people from near and afar and it still continues to do so with more people from a wider scope. Mindanao has kept abreast with changing times and through the internet, it remains an important place that should not be missed.
The Mindanao Bloggers Summit is an important event that allows bloggers from and of Mindanao to convene and uphold the goal to celebrate and promote Mindanao. Now on its third year, the Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3 aims to change the way people see Mindanao.
The Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3 has the theme “Mindanao Bag-ohon ang Panan-aw” and it will be held on October 24, 2009 at Pearlmont Inn, Limketkai Drive here in Cagayan de Oro City.
The following is the schedule of activities for Mindanao Bloggers Summit 3:
17 July 2009, 6pm, Philtown Hotel, CDO – One of the Digital Filipino Club’s distinguished members Ms Janette Toral was in the city to talk about the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs 2009 Writing Project with the local bloggers of CDO. The weather had been bad but those who braved the heavy rain were in for a treat!
The program started with Ms Toral introducing herself then she handed the microphone to the participants so that they (umm it’s actually WE because I was there together with other CDOBloggers hahaha!) can introduce themselves and talk about their blogs. Some of the participants in the event were newbie bloggers while some were not new to the blogging world.
After the introductions were made, Ms Toral presented the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs of 2007 and 2008 and stated the reasons why those bogs ended on the lists of both years. They were all amazing and had various unique content! Ms Aileen Apolo who was one of the influential bloggers in 2007 was at the event and shared her blogging experiences too!
Ms Toral encouraged Cagay-anons to unite and nominate blogs by local bloggers to be part of the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs 2009. There’s barely two weeks left for Cagay-anons to come up with nominations! I hope there will be a local blogger who can make it to the top 10!
The event was sponsored by Syntactics, Inc. who also introduced their project LetIThelp.org that helps give training and employment to underprivileged local graduates.
The night ended with good cheer and most of the participants were cam whoring (forgive the term hahaha). When we left the halls of Philtown, we had to face the rain again but it was ok. It all had been worth it!
Last Saturday, 23 May 2009, CDOBloggers conducted a workshop on the basics of blogging. The event was held in Sentro 1850's conference room and it was attended by more than seventy people. I was one of them!
The following were discussed in the workshop:
Setting Up a Blog (Blogger, WordPress, LiveJournal, etc.)
Blog Writing (Types of Blogs, Niche Blogging, Blog Ethics)
Blog Promotion and Marketing (Driving Traffic and Search Engine Optimization)
Monetizing (Paid Posts, Advertisements)
Due to time constraints, there were some points not discussed but the organizers pledged to send additional tips to the participants via email.
A mini-contest was part of the workshop to check out if the participants really understood what were discussed and the prizes included free website domains and hosting, and ILOVECDO t-shirts.
I pretended that I was a bit thick-faced (hahaha! just a bit) and stood up to answer one of the questions asked by one of the speakers. I won a free domain and hosting too! I wanted it badly so I grabbed the opportunity! Hahahaha!
The event was CDOBloggers' first baby and the org vows to learn a lot from it for improvements in the future. I'm looking forward to future events with CDOBloggersand I hope the org will become more successful!
Today had been quite a day for us here in CDO since we are experiencing/had experienced another day of bad weather. On the way to work I had to go through heavy traffic on our normally traffic-less road, and the only available public transportation I was able to get my a$$ into had to go through knee-deep water. Thank goodness we were able to pass through.
As the day progressed and I surfed some sites for news, I came across this article by one of my favorite columnists Mr Butch Dalisay. Mr Dalisay is adept with writing in English and he is a professor in one of the country's prestigious universities. In his article he mentioned irritating Pinoy expressions most of us erroneously use either consciously or not. He also mentioned his article in the previous week where he started the discussion of such annoying expressions. I thank him for writing those articles since it opened up my eyes and made me reflect.
Majority (if not all) of us Filipinos do not have English as our first language thus we tend to have difficulty in communicating in the language. English is being taught in schools from elementary to tertiary school yet most of us still have a hard time in expressing ourselves in the language. We can only conclude a few things: either the English taught in our schools and our English teachers were in poor standing; we never paid attention during English class; or we never really gave a damn and we refused to learn.
English and Reading had been my favorite classes in grade school and I commend our English teachers for being tough on us when it came to spelling, subject and verb agreement, and sentence construction. In high school our English teachers scrutinized our schoolwork and encouraged us to polish our grammar. In college, our instructor in Basic College English (may her soul rest in peace, she passed away last month) was very kind to us and showed us how to be better with the language. For the rest of the college English classes I had, I can't remember if my other instructors had been strict with the rules of the language. I never really gave a damn.
English is an important language since it is used in many fields internationally and locally. However, one's knowledge of the language does not necessarily measure what kind of person he or she is. It is a great advantage for a person if he or she has a good command of English and he or she can apply it in his or her daily life especially on his or her job. Nevertheless knowledge of the language does not automatically mean that the person who can communicate with it will have a better life than those who can't.
I work as a content provider for websites and I am quite alarmed that my grasp of the English language is quite limited. I even have a hard time constructing quality articles since I have not had formal training in writing but I am trying my best to be less erroneous and ignorant than I had been before.
I am currently laughing at the title of this post. I have a feeling that it is not appropriate. If it is indeed wrong, please tell me so I can correct it.
I have a feeling that it is another irritating Pinoy expression!
Since the beginning of 2009, my dear hometown had been drenched in hostile waters.It has had experienced a few sunny days but in a span of a week, Cagayan de Oro had experienced severe flooding and a lot of people had been displaced due to high waters.
I know a lot of people might scorn me and tell me that I don’t have the right to blog about the floods since I have not experienced them first hand.Our house had not been among those which had been flooded since it is situated on an elevated area yet I have a lot of friends and some relatives who went through that deluge.I am not as cold-hearted as I seem because my heart goes out to all those who went through it.Besides, who would want to see one’s hometown suffering from such an undesired and unexpected calamity? Who would want to know that the river rafts normally used by people for adventurous adrenaline rush had been used as rescue boats? Who would want to know that children have gone missing and a person died because of the said disaster?
There had been many causes why CDO had been flooded.We just can’t blame the bad weather.Each of us is to blame for what caused it.All of us had been careless in taking care of our environment.Improper garbage disposal, air and water pollution, and non-conservation of energy and resources could be the root causes of such a disaster.Other more organized activities such as illegal logging, illegal quarrying and illegal mining can also be pointed as the culprits of destruction.
Blame it on the weatherman for not predicting such heavy rains to come…but then the weather is expected to change unexpectedly…It is fickle like a woman… Well, these floods are the results of our contributions to climate change.
Nobody wanted these floods to happen…but they did!
Can we keep on blaming other people?
NO.
Who is to blame?
Yourself.
Myself.
Ourselves.
We're all connected... In our own little ways we can help prevent disasters such as these to happen.
Finally the bloggers in Cagayan de Oro have thought of uniting themselves and organized a group!
Yeah I know my “news flash” might be a bit late since the first meet up of some bloggers happened Friday last week and the second meet up was last Wednesday AND I wasn’t able to attend both!Well not yet!
Through the efforts of CDO people who love blogging and the internet especially Chiq Montes who created cdobloggers.com, some blogophiles in the city have shared their views and plans for the said up and coming group.The group aims to unite the bloggers in CDO; create impact in society; share common goals and interests with each other; and serve as a support group for bloggers in the city.
The group also looks forward to promote Cagayan de Oro by blogging about places, attractions and events in the city; blog about the people; and blog about one’s pride as a Kagay-anon.
I can’t put much in detail yet since as I have said, I have not joined a meet-up yet. I’ve only read the print-out.However I am encouraging all bloggers from CDO to join the group and sign up in its own social network cdobloggers.com.
If you are a blogger nga Kagay-anon, whether you are currently residing in the city or not, better join the forums and help the community grow and become fruitful…
Kinsa pa man magtinabangay kita-kita ra man gyapun mga tao sa Dakbayan sa Bulawanong Panaghigalaay!
