The Internet's 10 Most Influential Filipinos

This article by Janette Toral, Franchette Soriano, Emir Samonte, Anthony Rola and Carlos Gonzales was published in The Web Philippines January/February 1999 issue. WIRED! Philippines thanks TWP editor-in-chief Heinz Bulos for giving us permission to republish the article.

The Web Philippines magazine ran a survey from the Internet community for the Internet's ten most influential Filipinos. We got a lot of feedback from this and we have narrowed it down to people that we decided fit our criteria, which are the following:

1. the person must have contributed significantly already to the development of Internet usage in the Philippines;
2. the person must still play some role today, even though it may not be as pivotal;
3. the person must be widely acknowledged as a major influence across a wide spectrum of local Internet users and developers.

The team also agreed that it would not include those who are influential in IT in general, but would stick only to those who have a significant influence on Internet developments in the country. We focused on individuals, and excluded companies. We did not include people from the press. Being the first is also not enough (that would be another story).

We honor these individuals who have exerted extraordinary efforts to support the growth of the Philippine Internet community.

• Manny Amador
• Jim Ayson
• Fernando Contreras
• Joel Disini
• Willy Gan
• Ken Ilio
• William Padolina
• William Torres
• Leandro Verceles Jr.
• Rodolfo Villarica