My professor in Journalism once declared in class that blogging has turned the publishing industry upside down. People can now “publish” their news, ideas, and opinions without going through the trappings of mainstream media. All they need is a computer and an internet connection. Many authors and even journalists have turned to blogging as a way of freeing their work from editors. Others use it as a diary or journal. While some others use it as forum for uncensored, unmediated, uncontrolled expression. Thus it is now considered a fact that the real power of blogging is the democratization of the distribution of information.

I used different kinds of blog search engines to find out just how many pinoy bloggers are out there. Pinoyblog, a free service for Filipino blogs and bloggers, is home to 1123 online members. Perhaps the most accurate statistics, in terms of comparing the number of bloggers by country, can be found in Blogwise. It lists pinoys among the top bloggers in the world. The following is the top ten line-up:

1. U.S. 19,812
2. United Kingdom 3,008
3. Canada 2,486
4. Brazil 1,395
5. Spain 1,260
6. Australia 1,087
7. Italy 900
8. Philippines 814
9. Singapore 654
10. Portugal 695

Although Blogwise is not an exhaustive record of all the bloggers in the world, it will still give you an idea how strong the presence is of pinoys in the whole blogosphere. Based on Blogwise, pinoys take the eighth slot in a top ten line-up and conspicuously outrank all other third world countries, except Brazil, which has 176 million people. The main reason for this is probably the high level of education pinoys have and the importance pinoys place on freely expressing one’s opinions and ideas.

For pinoys all over the world, blogging is becoming more and more an alternative to commercial sources of information. With blogging comes not only the freedom of expression but also the ability to demonstrate that freedom in an easy and relatively cheap way. Blogging has also proved itself to be an ideal way to foster links among people and provide an easy way to get feedback and comment that was missing from many other ways of communicating.