We’ve read the stories, and some may have even participated in the discussions. Blogs and Bloggers had been a force to contend with when it comes to hotly-debated issues, such as political ones. We’ve seen how bloggers had voiced their respective strong opinions on the Iraq war, freedom of speech in China, and all other issues that come along our way. Now I feel it’s time I made my Earth-shaking piece, at least relating to an issue closer to home–and that is my own struggling nation.

My advocacy

I’m advocating for inclusion of the Philippines as a PayPal-enabled country. To this end, some fellow bloggers and I intend to lobby for such.

You see, we’re not included in the PayPal list. We used to be, until by some twist of chance, PayPal decided to drop support for the country. I’m not privy to the actual reasons, though I have my theories. Some cite potential money laundering issues. Some cite exorbitant banking charges. Some believe it’s because of poor security in banking transactions.

Whatever the real reason may be, I think the fact that we cannot transact using PayPal is a limiting factor to the growth of our economy, especially since citizens (or residents) of the rest of the world seem to be enjoying the ability to exchange funds freely with a few clicks of the mouse. We can only use expensive, slow and inconvenient money transfer facilities.

I’m an economist, by the way (my undergrad and graduate degrees). I used to serve my government’s socio-economic planning ministry.

Breaking the barriers

I think having PayPal would help the country’s economy by easing the means by which we transact and exchange funds with the rest of the world. This would open up the supply of the country’s knowledge workers–whom I believe are ripe for the picking–to everyone else. There are the pro-bloggers and writers like myself. There are the Web developers and designers, and a multitude of people with other skill sets and professions they’d be glad to share with people elsewhere.

Technology is supposed to break geographic barriers, leading to increasing mobility of factors of production–today Knowledge is the foremost capital–but somehow people can still stifle innovation.

So can bloggers change the world? In our own little ways, we try.

Any support in forwarding this advocacy would be greatly appreciated.

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Hope you like that post!

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