In my early days on blogging, one of my interest was on Philippine politics. But I was really careful in writing blogposts. Actually I avoid writing against any politician just to avoid any compromises in blogging.

When I visited my province last 2005, I planned to write a series of blogposts about the Congressman’s project on concreting the Highway. I even planned to expose how our Mayor managed his projects like construction of Gym and rehabilitation of the Municipal Hall. However, I was stopped doing all those plans I made by my fears that those who would be hit by my blogposts will sue me for writing against them. And the worst thing that they might do against me was to kick my sisters from working in the Municipal Offices.

In relation to my fears, yesterday January 22, 2007, it was reported that a blogger was sent to jail by blogging against their President:

A Kazakh court gave a pro-opposition blogger a two-year suspended jail sentence on Monday for libeling President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

Kazis Toguzbayev, 58, was found guilty of insulting the long-serving Kazakh leader in two articles published on the Web log www.kub.kz by alleging that Nazarbayev bore responsibility for the murder of an opposition politician in February 2006.

“Toguzbayev publicly insulted the president’s honor and dignity,” Natalia Rusakova, an Almaty regional court judge, told the courtroom as she read out the sentence.

The prosecutor had asked for three years of labor in a penal colony, but the judge softened the sentence because of Toguzbayev’s age and the fact that he had no criminal record.

An Egyptian student was thrown behind bars for commenting against their governmnet:

A 22-year-old Egyptian student has been thrown in jail for expressing dissident views on his weblog. He lives in Egypt, but he’s one of us –a member of our generation expressing his dicontent with the government he lives under and the policies it pushes.

So, if I will follow my heart in blogging against our government or any of the politicians here, maybe I will end up grasping the bars.