After the initial stream of entries inspired by an entry from The Sassy Lawyer, a response from PDI‘s Joey Alarilla surfaces on his weblog — with a very personal tone.

It’s come to my attention that the launch of INQ7.net’s Talking Points blog has elicited a negative reaction among certain members of the Philippine blogging community — you know who you are.

I don’t think there’s a valid point of contention on what he can write on his own site, just as I can write about “Talking Points” shortcomings, as well as other issues with the INQ7.net site. But to imply that our words are just “rants” is totally unacceptable. Most of us are regular readers of your paper’s online version, and my family has been reading the Inquirer since God–knows–when; I’ve been scanning it from cover–to–cover (well, figuratively) since my early grade school days. To say that “no one’s forcing you to use it if you don’t like it” even in your personal weblog is a display of gross disrespect to your employer and more importantly, your readers.

We were raising technical and journalistic issues with your weblog–of–sorts, you responded with a lecture on what we can and cannot do. And what about permalinks, archives, comments, and other things that typically describe a weblog, do we get another rant for that? It wouldn’t really take much if you go to wikipedia and read what permalinks are and why you need them in your so–called–weblog.

You mentioned something hilarious; now what I find hilarious is your admission that you just started blogging and you refuse to honor the value of linking, the “living” part of this thing we call the living web. The Fallenstar couldn’t have said it more appropriately.

What is my point, really? INQ7.net has all the resources to roll out a proper weblog, one that benefits its readers and harmoniously blends with the rest of the online community, bloggers and all. On a lighter note, if you’ve been having technical problems implementing the necessary weblog features, you can actually signup at blogger and make a “Talking Points” weblog, and then just do a PHP include() in your /talkingpoints/index.php file. Of course it’s a joke. 🙂