Bong Austero is 2nd Filipino blogger-turned-columnist

Most of the people out there who are closely watching the Philippine political blogosphere will probably know who Bong Austero is.

For those who don’t know him yet, he was the blogger who published the “Open Letter To Our Leaders” last February 27, 2006 which became so popular it might have been passed from one email to another thosands of times over (I got one but didn’t read all of it). It was eventually used by opposition groups and published on major newspapers. Mr. Austero even got a TV interview on The Big Picture (ANC) with Ricky Carandang.

That 60 minutes of limelight has made the previously unknown Bong Austero from a mere blogger to a columnist at the Manila Standard Today (officially starting June 19):

Starting today, and every Monday and Wednesday thereafter, my byline will appear in the opinion pages of the Manila Standard Today. My maiden column is about something close to my heart as a Human Resource Management practitioner: wages.

Although it was that letter that gave me my 10 minutes of notoriety, it was this blog that caught media’s attention. Yup, bloggers out there, it looks like mainstream media is indeed keeping a keen eye on the blogosphere. Manila Standard Today has another blogger on its roster of columnists, Sassy Lawyer.

I know that there are bloggers out there who will see this move as a form of selling out. I don’t.