Wednesday, June 23, 2010

The Computer Professionals' Union and Advancing ICT for the People

In 2001, a group of information communications technology (ICT) practitioners established the Computer Professionals' Union (CPU) of the Philippines in response to the expressed need of grassroots-oriented organisations to understand the state of ICT that was becoming a very pronounced sector in the Philippines' national development landscape. The technicalities of the state of the ICT industry and its accompanying issues had to be articulated in the context of people's development.

Eventually, the CPU would extend its reach to do advocacy and organising work amongst computer professionals and enthusiasts, i.e., programmers, system developers, system analysts, ICT project managers, university students, including teachers and researchers from the academe.

In 2008, CPU was officially registered under the Securities and Exchange Commission in the Philippines as a non-stock, not-for-profit organisation.

The CPU has a core of active voluntary members who have committed themselves to a vision of a Philippines that is free from foreign control and domination, where its people enjoy democratic and civil rights, and where information and communications technology can assist and serve the real development needs of the country's people and economy. Circumscribed in this institutional vision, the CPU states as its mission, to work for an information and communications technology that will benefit the Filipino people through the enunciation of a pro-people critical standpoint on the state of ICT in the country and its impact on the Filipino people in general and on ICT professionals in particular. The CPU is, therefore, dedicated to further advancing the specific demands of Filipino ICT professionals in the workplace.

Terry Ridon

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