MANILA, Philippines - It's been five days since I got back from Brussels, armed with loads of story ideas on the different development issues surrounding my country and the rest of the world.

It is indeed an honor to be part of the THINK3 European Blogging Competition. Many thanks to the European Journalism Centre as well as to the Ateneo de Manila University for this opportunity.

Thank you too, to the veteran journalists and non-government workers for sharing their profound experiences during the two-day launch. You have all inspired me to continue doing what I truly enjoy most --- journalism.

Development. Millennium Development Goals. Big words. And in a country like the Philippines, which is plagued by corruption and patronage politics, real and genuine sustainable development is still very elusive.

In the coming months, I hope to be able to show you vignettes of life in my country and why development remains wanting. Needless to say, I hope to learn a lot, too about the development issues in the rest of the global village.

Let's share and discuss and hopefully, along the way, we can find some answers on how -- bit by bit -- we can make things better.

Now, let's start somewhere....

(EJC editor Ruth Spencer speaks to bloggers during the launch of the blogging competition in Brussels. March 22, 2010)