Like most people over the world, Filipinos watched and waited, and waited, for catastrophic events to happen at the stroke of midnight on Dec. 31, 1999. Except for a few flukes (remember the school of jellyfish that caused a widespread power outage in Luzon?), the year 2000 bug proved to be more of a bad news for numerous "survivalists" in the United States than the sensible party of revelers in other parts of the globe.

Survivalists in the US who have stockpiled food for the next two years or more are now the butt of jokes. Canned Tuna, anyone?

In the Philippines, as Infotech editor Leo Magno predicted, the Y2K was nothing more than Y2 "we’re all OK." The sun was up the next day, the lights were on, and most people were more concerned about nursing a hangover than tending to the mess the Y2K problem might have caused. Of course, the expected havoc did not happen because many local companies had spent time and money fixing the Y2K problem in the country.

Phew.

And so life went on. Attention shifted to other things. The "dotcom" fever began infecting every Filipino entrepreneur early in the year. Diversified Financial Network Inc., a Filipino-owned "click" company focusing on the financial market, disclosed ambitious plans of listing at the Philippine Stock Exchange. Meanwhile, engineering students from several local universities taught little box-like machines how to score a goal in a tournament dubbed "robot soccer."

And from out of the blue ether, words like 3G, e-business, information technology (IT) parks and WAP (wireless application protocol) spewed out of the mouths of digital age gurus, salesmen, and CEOs of multinational computer software and hardware firms. The local IT industry and journalists themselves fed on this jargon. Remember how the word "software product" has evolved into "software solutions," and then to "complete software solutions," then to "total solutions package," etc.

Get the picture?

Meanwhile, the local ‘‘dotcom’’ commotion ensued. Local search engine Yehey! partnered with Singapore-based Catcha.com, which in turn introduced fresh capital amounting to a cool $1 million. MP3Manila.com, founded and created by kids fresh from college, made its debut as it promised to bring ‘‘underground’’ Filipino music and talent to the Internet. The founders of this local MP3 site later got an undisclosed amount of funding from a local mining-firm-turned-holdings-firm Ajo.net, and even found themselves in the pages of Asiaweek.

While a lot of Filipino entrepreneurs thought of quitting their day jobs and joining a dotcom, local conglomerates realized how electronic commerce can make their business grow by leaps and bounds. Big companies talked about consolidation of business ventures as key to survival in the digital age. E-commerce and e-business have become buzzwords among CEOs, while ‘‘going dotcom’’ was the mantra of young and talented Filipino entrepreneurs.

Several volunteers from the local IT industry had also begun working on the features of a proposed E-commerce law, while Microsoft, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Lotus, Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Intel jostled for positions in the local e-commerce market.

Two influential Filipino businessmen--Manuel Pangilinan of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. and Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala--discussed e-commerce with the local IT industry.

Lotus Philippines chief Victor Silvino sued Microsoft Philippines managing director Darren Lockie for grave threats. Lockie was later called to defend himself at the local courts, but hearings were cancelled when both decided to settle. By the way, the quarrel was nothing but personal.

At the dotcom front: Ayala-backed Edsamail created a commotion in the local IT industry when it introduced a free e-mail service that is not Web-based. A much-hyped PhilWeb bared plans of doing a backdoor listing at the Philippine stock exchange. And one of the biggest news of the year: Free Web-based e-mail service—Pinoymail--bagged a P100-million deal with former PLDT executive Orlando Vea. Not bad for a dotcom created by former journalist Dominick Danao from the proverbial garage.

The local dotcom fever was nothing but vibrant early this year as hundreds of dotcom ideas sprung out of the deep recesses of the Filipinos’ minds.

DrGeorge.com, a medical website by Filipinos; HatchAsia, a local Internet incubator; Lawyer.com.ph, a website created by Filipino lawyers; and a host of other startups dotted the Internet landscape. In the background, local Internet service providers, telephone firms and other infrastructure providers gradually built the local information superhighway with the introduction of broadband and wireless Internet technology. Nice timing since this year is incidentally the sixth anniversary of the Internet in the Philippines.

During this year, the writing of the e-commerce story began. Touted as the law that will once and for all bring the country to the digital age, the E-commerce Law was lobbied in Congress and the Senate by various groups in the local industry. Among the strong advocates of this law included the Philippine Internet Commerce Society, which spent night and day telling the e-commerce story to the legislators.

On June 14, the e-commerce bill was passed and signed into law by President Estrada who was taught to affix his digital signature into an electronic representative of the e-commerce law. Today, the President is being accused of affixing his handwritten signature--a fake one at that--on a document in a P500-million transaction.

The IT industry was in high spirits until college dropout 22-year-old Onel de Guzman gave love a bad name. Local authorities subsequently tagged De Guzman as the person behind the ILOVEYOU worm that plagued computers worldwide.

After that incident, excitement in the local industry somehow went "pfft."

Next thing we knew, everything seemed to be going downhill.

Dotcoms have lost their touch. All they seemed to have was hot air, as many predicted them to become months earlier. And yet, dotcom ideas came and went. A few local ingenious startups conducted seminars on teaching local dotcoms how to practice their "elevator pitches" for potential venture capitalists. The writings on the wall, however, were clear. The magic was gone. Dotcoms were no longer magnets to money.

Instead, money was in the B2B (business-to-business) area, the click-and-mortar firms, the lucky few who had deeper pockets to survive the Nasdaq crash. The result: local conglomerates this year scampered to put up their own B2B websites. Thus we have seen the rise of Bayantrade.com, SourcePilipinas.com, PhilBx.com and CateringX.com.

Meanwhile, much hype also happened in the wireless technology and Linux sectors this year, but it is still too early to say if any ventures in these fronts have resulted in profitable ventures. Well, one group thought of going into Internet gambling, which proved very profitable.

Near the end of the year, it was evident that the ‘‘old boys’’ of the business arena were likely to survive the new dotconomy. Some startups, however, were not about to give up as they began touting a new business concept called ASP or application service provision. In the spirit of renting out applications or software at a lower cost, startups perceived that there is money to be made in this venture. In fact, Microsoft has joined this bandwagon and has even given it a name--"Microsoft .Net." Oracle answered with its own similar strategy--".Now."

On October, however, the local IT industry took a bad turn when whistleblower Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis "Chavit" Singson exposed President Estrada’s alleged collection of gambling payoffs. Amid these economic woes, Microsoft Philippines employees were reportedly forced to seek greener pastures. Meanwhile, the first Philippine listing of a dotcom at the local bourse through Dfnn.com reportedly "flopped" as the economic situation and political crisis scared off potential investors.

Several IT champions in government subsequently decided to step down in reaction to the political crisis hounding Mr. Estrada. Similarly, some private sector members of the Information Technology and E-Commerce Council, the highest IT policy-making body in the country, decided to boycott the council’s meetings until President Estrada resigns.

In cyberspace, various groups and individuals held anti-Estrada rallies, and some still do today.

As the year 2000 comes to an end, the industry touted to drive Philippine economy to greater heights seems to be at a standstill while government tries to resolve political and economic issues brought about by the scandal involving President Estrada.

"The political crisis is plaguing the ICT (information and communications technology) industry. I even believe that ICT activities in the country are at a standstill," Rep. Leandro Verceles Jr. of Catanduanes told members of Cyberpress Philippines, an organization composed of journalists writing about IT and telecommunications industry.

Josephine Victoria Tañada Yam, president of Lawyer.com.ph, was more blunt:

"The information and communications technology industry began strong this year but will end with a whimper."

At this time, Verceles believes that ICT activities have been placed at the backburner as government focuses on more pressing problems like the Estrada impeachment trial. Therefore, if the political crisis is prolonged, most of the ICT projects in both government and private sector will be suspended until a new leadership takes up the cudgels.

Funny, the year 2000 began with much anxiety and is about to end in the same way.