So what's the World Wide Web by the way? Imagine a filing cabinet... Inside the cabinet are sheets of paper containing letters, magazine articles, lists of addresses, photographs, drawings, maps, or anything that can be on paper. The top of each sheet has an address telling where that sheet of paper goes in the filing cabinet. It tells the name of the drawer, the name of the manila folder, the name of the sheet of paper. All the paper in all the filing cabinets in all the world have unique addresses telling the location of each piece of paper: the name of the city, name of the building, name of the filing cabinet, name of the drawer, name of the manila folder, name of the sheet of paper. That address tells what: city to go to, building to go to, filing cabinet to go to, drawer to open, manila folder to pull out, to find that sheet of paper. Filing cabinets that hold paper pages are just like computers that hold electronic pages. The Web is electronic pages on computers scattered around the world. Thus, the name "World Wide Web" or WWW for short.

And Alpha Phi Omega Philippines is on the Web. Yes, we are "hooked". And we have been "online" for three years now! But how did this all come about? Brother Boy Lopez (Beta Chi '73) then the newly appointed Chief Information Officer during the second half of Brother Teddy Rivera's term as National President envisioned of making APO Philippines easily reachable via the Internet especially by Brothers and Sisters who are in the far away places. Brother Boy's immediate concern then was to set up an official web site for the Alpha Phi Omega, Philippines Inc. A Web Team was organized that was composed of volunteers but dedicated webmasters and experts in this field who all shared the same vision and enthusiasm. The Web Team's mission was not only to help in the development of the said web site but to provide services on its general maintenance as well.. The web team members themselves are located in the different parts of the world. Based in the USA are: Bro. Chito Refuerzo (Alpha Omicron '69B), Seattle,WA; Brother Homer Yamsuan (Pi '94D) - Illinois and Brother Ronald "Jigsaw" Reodica (Eta Kappa '89) - New Jersey. Bro. Ashary Tamano (Beta Upsilon '76B) and Bro. Edwin Monge (Beta Beta '90C) are based in the Middle East. Bro. Boy Lopez and this writer are based in the Philippines. Thru electronic mails and other medium of communication on the Internet the web team laid down the framework in what will later come up as the official web site of Alpha Phi Omega Philippines. And so on May 12, 2000, the domain name apo.org.ph was officially registered on the Web. Since then and up to the present, the said web site has undergone tremendous improvements. It features both exhaustive information and downloadable data. Among others, the site includes pages from the APO history to APO updates and to the information officers page, from APO email groups to chat rooms, from the web forum to the guestbook, from the ID database to ID renewals, from the roster of chapters to the roster of members, from links to photo galleries to links to other APO web sites, from the APO standard documents to business opportunities and employment pages to the foreign exchange page, and from the password-protected pages to the gatekeepers page. One of its salient services is that it provides for a prompt reply and action to inquiries, comments, suggestions and requests for assistance thru a sustained online presence by the web team members, information officers and volunteer gatekeepers. The APOPhil web page has an address called Uniform Resource Locator or URL. The URL for the APOPHil web page is http://www.apo.org.ph. "http" or hyper text transfer protocol tells the computer that this is a Web page. This is followed by a colon (:) and two forward slashes (//). "www" is World Wide Web. "apo", of course is Alpha Phi Omega. "org" is organization and "ph" is Philippines. The APOPhil website has far reached out to APO members. It is easily accessible on the Web. Because of this unique service and the worldwide support it has gained from Brothers and Sisters, "long-lost" members have been "found" while many members gain more acquaintances by meeting other Brothers and Sisters whom they have not the opportunity to meet before. Truly apo.org.ph is a representation of every APO member's desire to keep constant contact with the Organization. It also manifests the unwavering commitment of the National Leadership to extend the Organization's services to its members via the Internet. It is therefore not surprising to note that the website has seen more than 100,000 visits both by members and non-members alike. And the number is rapidly increasing. How about a visit to the site and see for yourself? If you're new to the Internet, ask any Internet aficionado how to go online. Or simply go to an internet caf�, open up the browser of a computer, type in the address http://www.apo.org.ph and then press "Enter". See you soon on the APOPhil Web!

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