In support of the MozTour organized by fellow Mozilla Rep (ReMo) Melchor “Chor” Compendio, I was en route to Tacloban (TAC) as early as 0540H this morning with the Mozilla Philippines team composed of Community Manager Eusebio “Jun” Barrun, Jr., the brother-sister tandem of fellow ReMo Kemuel and Joyce Domanog, and of course our very able guide to the province of Leyte – Chor. We arrived at Tacloban City, Leyte (which is around 573 kilometers from Manila; considered to be a highly urbanized city) minutes before 0700H. From the airport, we took a jeepney ride to the nearest shuttle van service terminal (oddly named Van Van’s) that ply the route of Tacloban to Baybay City – the first stop of the MozTour Leyte.
We literally crossed mountains and bridges for us to reach the Visayas State University (VSU) from Tacloban City after almost three (03) hours of land travel. Upon reaching the coastal city of Baybay, first on our agenda was lunch.
We stopped by Andok’s Baybay City. You see, Andok’s is quite popular in Metro Manila — with branches scattered in almost every corner of the metropolis; but this branch of theirs is unique in a way: it’s a big branch with dine-in facility plus the ambiance — just meters away from the coastline! After this pit stop, we took a multicab (smaller version of an AUV or jeepney) for a 15-minute journey to the Visayas State University (VSU).
We had a very good turnout of attendees as evident in the photo above — the venue was jam packed (not to mention that even the “balcony” was occupied moments after this shot was taken. Jun started the with his Mozilla for Webgeeks keynote presentation — giving the attendees an overview of what Mozilla is; what is Firefox; and what are the different activities of the Mozilla Philippines Community.
Two (02) hours after Jun started (yes, that’s how long his keynote was), it’s my turn to have the floor. I gave the attendees an overview about HTML5 Cross Platform Mobile Development and of course, the Firefox OS (B2G). I also showed the crowd the country’s very first Firefox OS mobile phone unit plus some screenshots of the mobile OS’ capabilities running on a local telco SIM card.
The MozTour to the Visayas State University concluded with a tour of the entire campus — which is comparable to that of University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) in Laguna.
