Wednesday, May 21, 2014

Philippine Media Practitioners & CSOs are now skilled in using Open Data

Open Knowledge Foundation, an international non-profit organization dedicated to raising awareness on the importance of open knowledge and World Bank, empowered civil society organizations (CSOs) and media practitioners with skills to use open data in the recently concluded two-day Data Skills Training held on May 14 and May 17, 2014 at One Global Place in Taguig City.




Some of the CSO representatives who participated during the workshop were from The Asia Foundation, Asia Society Philippines, PinoyME Foundation, INCITEGov, and Code-NGO. Invited media practitioners represented ABS-CBN, GMA News, GMA News Online, Inquirer, Philstar, Rappler, and Solar News.




Ivory Ong of the Department of Budget and Management and Outreach Lead of Open Data PH briefly discussed about the history of the Open Data Taskforce in the Philippines leading to the creation of the National Open Data Portal of the Philippines -- http://www.data.gov.ph "which aims to make national government data searchable, accessible, and useful, with the help of the different agencies of government, and with the participation of the public".

The trainers who conducted the two-day workshop were Anders Pedersen, Knowledge Development Lead of School of Data and Sergio Araiza, a trainer and programmer at Social Tic and Escuela De Datos.

Data driven journalism was discussed on the first day of the workshop. It included topics about planning data investigation and scraping data from websites and pdfs. Through the use of powerful Google-related tools, data from websites such as Philgeps can be downloaded in an easier way, saving time and effort. Data cleaning was also taught, because not all data downloaded were organized. Tables from pdfs can be downloaded using an online tool called Tabula.




Another online tool, onlineocr.net, which Solar News Researchers frequently use to convert pdfs to word documents, was also presented but for the purpose of scraping data from pdfs and convert the data to csv file.

Introduction to data visualization was also part of the first day of the workshop. Techniques on how to present timelines through timeline.knightlab.org and playing data through timemapper were also taught. To visualize the data, the output must be published in a website. On the other hand, tools to create maps with emphasis on locating the coordinates were also presented.

How the readers will appreciate the data presented depends on the design of the data visualization. There were so many ways to visualize the data by creating amazing maps through cartodb.com. Most of the tutorials presented can also be found at http://www.schoolofdata.org.

On the second day of the workshop, Open Data PH Chairman Edwin Lacierda was present. Groups were formed and the participants were taught the use of Google Refine in cleaning scraped or downloaded data. In preparation for the Data Expedition, a sample table from the Bureau of Customs was given to each group. The importance of data expedition is for the journalist to ask himself what he needs to get from the data. There are some data that isn't interesting, or not really needed for the story he is going to write or present, and those need to be eliminated. Data expedition also aims at finding interesting new angles for the story.

All groups presented their outputs. The participants were surprised to learn that their were discrepancies in the data published by the BOC. Regardless of the discrepancies, China is still the top exporter of goods to the Philippines. Other groups presented about which countries pay the highest tax for exportation and many others.

The Data Skills Training came to a close after all groups have presented their outputs and Anders Pedersen have invited all participants to join the School of Data Fellowship program. I'm grateful to be part of this rich and comprehensive training.

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Thursday, May 15, 2014

Pilgrimage to the River

Norzagaray, a historic town known for its heritage sites, is located in the province of Bulacan. This is the home of one of the country’s largest hydroelectric power plant, the Angat Dam, which supplies water to Metro Manila. One of the country’s biggest manufacturer of cement is also found there. But some of its areas are still not accessible by vehicles.

In one of its remote areas, there is a river called Bitbit. And that was my destination.

The dawn was breaking when my 13-kilometer journey on foot started.

A childhood past was remembered. Fifteen years ago, I climbed the hills with boys. Now that I have grown up, I had four men with me - newfound friends as I could describe them.

Our goal was to reach the river at midmorning. But the steep pathways and zigzag roads made it hard for me to run and catch up with those men, thanks to the burden I carried with me - a bag of unnecessary stuff. The load kept slowing me down. And I became the slowest of them. On of the men paced with me. I felt sorry that he had to wait for me. But we kept on running. Bikers were seen here and there, and I wished I had a bike too.

It was a Sunday morning. I could hear the singing of the choir inside churches we passed by. Children were playing in the streets. I saw some natives cutting wood. Offices and some establishments were closed and there was no way I could leave my stuff. I had to carry it with me for the rest of our journey. There were a lot of dogs madly barking at us, recognizing that we were real foreigners in the area.

We rested at nearby stores. There were convenient areas where we could sit and replenish our lost fluids. The men’s faces were all covered with sweat while their clothes were soaked as if they had plunged into a pool.

As much as we wanted to rest, we had to get going.

Great canopies covered the sides of the road as we moved up. Slowly, the presence of civilization disappeared. The long, long road felt empty. The climb was forever just like the endless blue skies.

I asked myself, “Is it still a thousand miles way from the river?”

My feet sore in the lonely highways. My shoulders ache. One of the men took my "burden" away so I could run faster.

For a few minutes, I have attained a feeling of relief. But this taken pathway was not as easy as I thought. The thought of letting someone carry your cross was heavy on the heart.

Hours later, we reached the dirt road. The dam could be seen from afar. Fogs converge with the forests. And something was calling us.

“Could you hear the gentle whisper of the river?”, one of the men asked.

The story of our destination was gradually unfolding. High emotions continue to fill me. The beating of my heart echoes. The sound is softly inviting us closer to its abode.

Through my eyes I saw the glistening emerald river. I have fallen in love with it. Grand forests served as its ancient guardians. As we crossed the river, dog tracks were seen stamped on them.

Our skins felt the coolness of the river. We bathed in the sun’s light.

I asked the river, “River, did you bring me here?”

It was an auspicious time. I will never forget the day I experienced that ecstasy. In India, pilgrims went to the river Ganges to cleanse their sins. That day, it was like a pilgrimage to release our stress. It was a time of rest after a gruelling long climb. What a lovely Sunday in that emerald sanctuary!

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Revised version.
First published at worldmomads.com.
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