(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.
