June 21, Wednesday, I was talking to Dune Padre, department head of the EDP Team, proposing a new design of the 4-year old podcast service of the city, when suddenly he remembers that there is a training workshop on blogging and podcasting in Makati, to be hosted by the Naumann Foundation, that is to be conducted very soon.

Going back to the Metro Naga Development Center where I work, I told my boss about the forthcoming event. Having known that I spearheaded the city’s podcasting service more than 3 years ago, he immediately approved my request to attend without any hesitation.

To cut the story short, I am now a participant to the Express yourself! Reloaded training workshop sponsored by the FNF (Friedrich Naumann Foundation).

Now here I am, constructing my very own blog for the first time in the history of my career. Never have I imagined that I will be using the service as most often, I help design implentation of similar applications.

Now, a quick look at the workshop.

Manolo Quezon III did an overview of political blogging and podcasting in the Philippines. Issues on where to focus on, whether on personalities or issues was tackled, defining the audience, setting roles, rights, as well as expectations.

But it was only the beginning. Ronald Meinardus of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation addressed the issues on what the message is, how to identify and write about issues that matter (far right).

A step by step tutorial for setting up our own blog, using a free blogging website, was presented by Abe Olandes.

We already have a working blogsite at the City Government of Naga, http://planet.naga.gov.ph. Even then, it was fun creating a new account on wordpress.com and sharing the same experience with the other participants.

Mr. Meinardus of the FNF said it is now time. We are to write a blog, not a book.

So far, so good.

It was jumpstarted by the need to address the low completion rates in public schools. Our data shows that for every 100 students that enter Grade I in city public schools, only 83 would finish Grade VI, of which 77 will proceed to the secondary level. And of the 77 that enrolls in first year, only 57 will eventually finish high school. Student truancy contributes to this poor performance; by mobilizing the community to report incidents of truancy, and routing information directly to authorities for action, we thought the city will be able to improve the situation.