The Commision on Elections (Comelec) is currenly planning to make use of blogs in preparation for the coming elections. Through the Education and Information Department (EID)’s blog , Comelec aims to give updates on the status of the registration of voters, as well as to educate them about the registration process.

“Now that we have the technology available and stable, the Comelec will use the bagongbotante.ph blog website to give voters here and abroad updates about the ongoing registration and at the same time, to gather feedback from voters, especially the youth” said James Jimenez, Comelec spokesman.

Although, it wasn’t mentioned how the Comelec is planning to give their “updates” to the voters (Would it be through individual e-mails? Or a personal status page for each voter? ). The mentioned blog will be providing blog articles, pictures and videos to give voters an idea on how the registration process works, the requirements they need to bring, and what they should do during the registration.

Here are some clarifications on the NTC Memorandum Issue.

Marcelle points out in his blog that bloggers don’t need to worry about NTC’s Memorandum because it only concerns telecom companies.

If you read closely enough, the intention is clear: this bill is aimed for value-added services like ringtones, picture messages, and so forth. This bill is mainly for the cellphone industry, since the NTC has jurisdiction over Telecom companies, but currently, is not quite empowered in the realm of the internet. Furthermore, the bill is not meant to burden the content developer, but in reality, is meant to empower the content developer by changing the current profit scheme that favors the content provider more than the developer. The obvious catch is to ensure this happens, the developers must register. [Read more on Marcelle's Blog]

[Update] Here’s an update on the NTC Memorandum Issue. Check it out for clarification about the issue.

A draft of a memorandum by the National Telecommunications Commision (NTC) has caught the attention of Pinoy bloggers as it states that the NTC is currently making plans of charging content providers for releasing “content” on the internet.

The memorandum states that all parties who develop content, information, applications, and electronic games over the internet are required to register and pay Php6000, plus Php300 for filing fee.

Wordpress, one of the best blog platforms around today, has just released a new resource site called Wordpress.TV.

No, it’ not the next YouTube killer, it’s actually a site which contains video tutorials on how to install self-hosted Wordpress and even on how to get around Wordpress.com.

Our goal with WordPress.tv is simple:
To make it easy for you to find up-to-date, WordPress-themed video content within a couple of clicks. Without having to wade through spammy promotional videos, out-of-date content, and missing chunks of presentations. [link]

The winners for the Digital Filipino Web Awards has just been announced yesterday, November 5 2008, over at the recognition ceremony held at Taste Asia, Mall of Asia.

The awards aims to advocate the use of the internet and e-commerce for business development, through the identification promotion, and highlighting of the best e-Commerce practices from various websites in the Philippines.

The winners found under the 34 categories were selected through a panel of judges taking into consideration criterias such as search engine readiness, content/organization, structure and navigation, design and functionality, technical performance, and interactivity.