In the legislation process, citizens rarely have access to the content of legislation until it is in its final stages and can only know about the haggling and negotiating of representatives through the reporting of journalists. Citizens hardly ever look directly at the content of legislation, more often relying on the recycled analysis of pundits who very likely did not read the legislation either. The referendum process can hardly be considered participation in policy making either, since it leaves most people with only a Yes/No vote on one, likely flawed, draft on public policy.

What I like most about the column is that, in a very mainstream publication, it tries to imagine a more participatory form of democracy. It is rare to find examples of someone
trying to transcend competitive interest-group pluralism. I think the "democratic" internet that Al 'Afghani serves as an example of why people feel more engaged when they are interacting, but whether they can be applied to legislation is another issue. I don't want to be caught up in the technological issues though, rather I find much more interesting the spirit in which it was written.

There is another new way that I would like to introduce to you. It's called e-Sanggunian, an internet base system for citizens to participate in the writing of legislation. Because it uses wikis, it has now been dubbed " wikislation." We may not meet each other in person in one room, but the same collective spirit I believe would prevail in cyberspace.

Doc Elmer explains: "E-Sanggunian takes advantage of emerging Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs, tagged photos, and RSS. These tools create an online space that allows your constituents actively participate in airing their interests and co-drafting city ordinances collaboratively online.

E-Sanggunian platform is enhanced by integration to a TXT-casting engine that will allow you to send 5 TXT updates to a total of 5,000 recipients per week to keep them posted on the proceedings on legislation ."