(The following article was on the front page of the Dec. 22, 2007 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Unfortunately, this was not posted in the paper’s online edition.)

By Gabriel Cardinoza
Inquirer Northern Luzon

DAGUPAN CITY — Somewhere in cyberspace, Pangasinenses around the world converge. 

Pangasinan Online (www.pangasinan.org) has allowed them to connect and interact with their loved ones, find long lost friends, and organize help for the poor in their hometowns.

Thanks to Fernando Mariñas, a San Diego-based network system administrator of a US government agency, who created the website six years ago. Mariñas is from Tayug town in Pangasinan.

“This site is dedicated to the people of Pangasinan, Philippines and those who trace their roots, or who have studied, worked, lived in there or just simply love the place,” said the website’s home page.

To date, Pangasinan Online is the most visited Pangasinan website in the World Wide Web. Its hit counter has registered more than 3.3 million visitors.

“Many more are going through the backdoor, meaning they create a shortcut going straight to their hometowns or school pages, by-passing the site’s counter,” Marinas said.

According to Alexa (www.alexa.com), a website that provides web traffic information, Pangasinan Online visitors far exceeded those that visited the Pangasinan provincial government website (www.pangasinan.gov.ph), which was launched in 1997.

‘Bridging the distance’

Marinas said he started the website in 1999 as Tayug.com, a site “with the sole purpose of bridging the distance” that separated his town mates around the world.

Inspired by the growing Internet technology in 2001, Marinas said he created Pangasinan Online that included all towns of Pangasinan. He adopted a simple, easy-to-navigate web design.

“We don’t have flying, roaring or disappearing images…but if you are looking for your friends, relatives, former classmates or just simply want to view some photos of your town, you are on the right place,” he said in the home page.

The website features school pages, personal pages, news and links, message boards for each town, a discussion corner, a reunion page and even a poetry page.

First time visitors will be tempted to open their hometown’s page and browse its message board to look for familiar names. Or they could go to the personal pages, where weddings, parties and other activities have been posted.

But more than a venue for socialization, Pangasinan Online has also been successful in sending help to the poor back home. “It united our town mates in helping our kabaleyan (province mates) back home,” Marinas said.

Backpack project

The most popular of the Pangasinan Online’s projects is the “Backpack Project” which has benefited more than 15,000 grade school pupils in various villages in Pangasinan’s 44 towns and four cities.

The project, which began in 2003, was meant to help indigent parents buy the basic necessities that their children need in school.

“They can hardly afford to buy pencil, pad paper, crayons and other school supplies…Many children use plastic bags or bags made from used flour sack to carry their books and stuff,” Marinas said.

“We can help by sharing a little percentage of our blessings to these children,” he said.

But more than the backpacks, Pangasinan Online also rallied Pangasinenses to help in building classrooms, libraries and health facilities in the province’s depressed communities.

A fully equipped learning center has been built in Barangay Labuan in San Quintin town, an alumni building at the Luna Colleges in Tayug town and computer and science laboratories in other schools.

Other projects include repairs of parish halls, a lying-in clinic and livelihood projects.

Happy endings

Looking back, Marinas said he was touched every time he remembers “happy endings” that his website had made possible.

For instance, he said, two surfers met and ended up getting married.

“One [woman] even wrote she found her former boyfriend in high school. Now, they are seeing each other and soon they will be married. Many such stories in our message boards,” he said.

A U.S. Air Force family, who used to be stationed in Clark Air Base in Pampanga, was looking for their former maid that they love so much.

“They found her through this website; they ended up having a reunion in Pangasinan,” Marinas said.

According to Alexa, most of Pangasinan Online surfers came from the Philippines (37.5%), followed by the United States (26.9%), Qatar (26.0%), United Kingdom (5.8%), Australia (1.9%), Canada (1%), and France (1%).