Wired

For the longest time I avoided the Internet, thinking I was on the verge of information overload without having to worry about e-mail and all that stuff in cyberspace. Being a technophobe, I also avoided cell phones like the plague – until I saw my grade school nieces and nephews getting their own mobile phones and learning textspeak.

Now I’m wired and, just as when I first learned how to use a computer years ago, I don’t know how I managed so long without the Internet. Throughout my month-long fellowship in the United States I was connected to relatives and friends not only here but in other parts of the globe. I could plug my laptop to hotel room phones and I would be connected, reading Philippine newspapers online, looking for information on the Web, sending and receiving anthrax-free e-mail.

In the first paragraph of my previous column, one line should have read, "Over at the mainland… " I e-mailed the story from Honolulu and I still have the file showing the correct version, but the paragraph, which I sent separately, was typeset manually and "at" disappeared – another reason I’m now sold to electronic communication.

Waiting for my return flight at the Honolulu airport I had access to the Net and managed to read The Star and send e-mail. Within minutes I received replies from two American friends, and soon we were chatting in cyberspace. I’m hooked, completely.

* * *

This interconnection has turned the world into a truly global village. As in all aspects of globalization, there are pluses and minuses here. Just as people worry about losing their livelihood and their cultural identity as a result of globalization, people worry about losing their privacy in cyberspace. Terrorists, pedophiles and other crooks have learned to use the Net for their twisted purposes.

Also, computers, like any machine, can be unreliable. In Washington the battery of my two-month-old Apple iBook stopped charging, and it cost me $400 (ouch!) to have its internal power supply replaced in a computer clinic. So much for technology.

Yet it’s still better to have access to the Net (just choose your laptop carefully). And right now e-mail is certainly more desirable than anthrax-vulnerable snail mail.

I spoke too soon, by the way – there is an anthrax scare even in balmy Hawaii. At the Honolulu airport I bumped into Charles Morrison, president of the East-West Center, who was on his way to Fiji. He told me health personnel in white suits descended Wednesday afternoon on Burns Hall, the East-West building where we held our fellowship meetings, testing for anthrax spores.

A student sorting the mail had opened an envelope postmarked Reston, Virginia and addressed to the human resources department of East-West. White powder hit her face. The envelope also contained a slip of paper declaring "Allah is gracious." Fortunately the test results were negative. This anthrax scare will kill the postal service.

* * *

When I e-mailed this story to the imam of Hawaii, Hakim Ouansafi, he pointed out that white powder pranks have been hitting the United States, at least one of which was traced to a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

See, e-mail allows you to get comments immediately from all over the world, at a minuscule fraction of the price of a long-distance call.

Realizing the power of this modern tool, many developing countries are devising ways of making computers and the Internet accessible to the masses. We have some catching up to do, and we better do it fast. Many of our people won’t be able to buy a computer in their lifetime. And the cost of Internet access, although still cheaper here than in most other countries, is still prohibitive for millions of Filipinos.

Our lawmakers have filed bills to promote communication and information technology. Projects involving IT and related services accounted for more than 63 percent of investments approved by the government from January to September this year, but we need more. We also have to push the widespread use of IT in the public education system. Filipinos are eager to learn, but they need IT facilities. I’ve heard a lot of best-efforts pledges in this department, but things are moving at glacial pace.

I don’t know how we can survive and compete in a global society without getting wired. In our East-West fellowship the only one without e-mail or access to the Net was the guy from Myanmar. But that country has a repressive regime. In our open society, the only hindrance to getting connected (apart from being a technophobe) is poverty. This the government must address.