The vignette / cover story for his "Towards a Political Economy of
Information":
“...We are all familiar with the typical story of an isolated village at
the edge of the forest. Some villagers have to go to town to buy a few
necessities, and maybe to stock the village store. Others need to go to
sell some products for cash. Villagers start to feel that the foot path
to town is insufficient for their needs.
Village activists may even pursue the issue and organize the people to
demand a better road. Eventually, public opinion is swayed, and a
petition is submitted. The government, the villagers are pleasantly
surprised, is amenable to the idea. Road-building eventually starts.
As completion date nears, the village organizes a welcome party for the
first vehicle that is coming in. A few days later, the village wakes up
to the rumble of engines and smell of diesel exhaust. The vehicles have
come. And they are logging trucks, carrying men with chain saws.”
He was a nice, kind guy.
Sad.
...
..
.
On 10/22/24 16:41, GM - tedbyfield via nettime-l wrote:
I just saw that Roberto Verzola, the “father of Philippine email” and a
nettimer from the “heroic” period, died a few years ago — “during Covid”
but, as one obit says, not due to it. I never met Roberto IRL, and I’m
not sure how many nettimers ever did, so — unless I missed something,
which is entirely possile — that his death would go unmentioned on the
list maybe isn’t so surprising If anything, it’s a testament to the
remarkable reach of this list in a time when, amazingly, the poetics of
the net were very different, somehow smaller or even strangely intimate.
The involvement of a Filipino activist was important for the list’s
imaginary.
I did a Google search to check out his postings:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Roberto+Verzola%22+site%3Anettime.org
I remember him as being a bit more prolific, but it’s hard to tell. In
Google’s earlier years, it *loved* nettime, but sometime, I’d guess
somewhere in the 2010–2015 range, it changed how it processed mailing
lists, and now it’s all but useless for finding results.
Abstractions aside, hats off to Roberto for what sounds like a life
well-lived in a time and place where it would have been much easier —
and much safer — to drift along. 🎩
A few links below.
Ted
——-
P2P Foundation bio
https://wiki.p2pfoundation.net/Roberto_Verzola
Libcom.org has him “narrat[ing] his youthful experience in the National
Democratic (Maoist) movement during the years of the Marcos dictatorship
in the Philippines”
https://libcom.org/article/lest-we-forget-roberto-s-verzola
And a few obits:
Newbytes.ph:
https://newsbytes.ph/2020/05/07/roberto-verzola-ph-internet-pioneer-and-activist-dies-at-67/
https://newsinfo.inquirer.net/1271704/verzola-father-of-philippine-email-67
He was a man of many hats: an electrical engineer, a pioneering
environmentalist, a mathematics professor, a social activist and a
martial law detainee.
But Roberto Verzola, Obet to friends and family, gained renown among
civil society circles as the father of Philippine email, having designed
and setup email systems for nongovernmental organizations (NGO) in 1992,
way before the internet had reached Philippine shores.
Verzola passed away on May 6 at the Capitol Medical Center in Quezon
City, after hospital confinement for pneumonia. He was 67.
Environmental lawyer Ipat Luna recalled how Obet had “a decrepit-looking
computer underneath his stairs that was providing a gateway to the NGO
sector to communicate.”
Despite the economic possibilities offered by his innovation, Verzola
shut down his operations in 2000 rather than charge higher fees for his
services.
His sister May Rodriguez described him as somewhat the country’s own Don
Quixote: eccentric yet idealistic and wise.
As a University of the Philippines student, he worked for the
underground newspaper Taliba ng Bayan and paid dearly for it.
In October 1974, the then 21-year-old was taken by state forces and
tortured. Between heavy blows of fists and bottles, he was repeatedly
electrocuted, an ordeal that was almost ironic to the young Verzola who
then was studying to be an electronics and communications engineer.
Verzola spent three years in detention, from 1974 to 1977.
After the dictatorship, he moved on to become a driving force behind
environmental groups, among them the Philippine Greens, Center for
Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology, Systems for Rice Technology
and Tanggol Kalikasan.
When the Department of Agriculture introduced genetically engineered Bt
corn, Verzola led a one-month hunger strike outside the agency’s gates
in 2003.
“He never asked for accolades,” said Red Constantino of the Institute
for Climate and Sustainable Cities. “It was enough for him to have the
space, however small, to test his ideas and see them to fruition,” he
added.
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