“To dream the impossible dream/
To fight the unbeatable foe/
To bear with unbearable sorrow/
And to run where the brave dare not go/……To reach
the unreachable star…”/
— excerpts from the song The Impossible Dream
CAGAYAN DE ORO — His dream of making the impossible possible has come to reality.
Augusto H. Baculio, Jr., a lawyer by profession and three-time Congressman of the 2nd District of Misamis Oriental had been nurturing dreams too many.
But one of that dreams had standout in his mind, and this is all about connecting the unconnected.
Burning his candles for quite a time, JunBacs as close associates fondly call him, solely depended by his own instinct to make a difference.
While he is not tech-driven, his dream of putting the country in the pedestal of internet connectivity had inspired him to make his dream impossible possible no matter what.
And so, he packed up all by himself to reach that unreachable star and indeed, his journey in the wilderness had paid off with a big bang.
During the post- covid, Orbits Satellite Corporation was born and as the founder Atty. Augusto Baculio, Jr aimed high in the vastness of the outer space that someday he will succeed to provide a dedicated broadband internet satellite to the country’s unconnected two million people across the 5,000 remote and rural communities.
“This milestone bridges the digital divide, empowering rural communities through a dedicated internet satellite connectivity,” Atty. Baculio declares with clarity in his mind to deliver his dream of connecting the unconnected.
Orbits Satellite Corporation is proud to bring world-class internet services to the country, he says proudly.
Last December 29, 2024 at 12:00 a.m. ET, Falcon 9 launched four “MicroGEO” satellites for the company Astranis’ mission, Astranis: From One to Many to a geosynchronous transfer orbit from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida.
That space mission at Astranis was to connect the world, excited to announce their first satellite program in Asia and the first satellite program outside of the Americas, dedicated for the Philippines, with enough bandwidth to connect up to two million people to reliable, affordable internet.
Astranis launched this program in partnership with Orbits Satellite Corporation as satellite services provider and sister company ISP, HTechCorp, which has over 20 years of experience providing internet services to the 7,000 plus islands of the country.
Orbit’s mission aligns with Astranis perfectly: to connect the unconnected regions, providing them with the tools necessary to thrive in the digital age.
This will be the first internet satellite ever dedicated to our country, a nation that is uniquely challenging to cover with traditional connectivity solutions like fiber, microwave, and large satellite systems, says Baculio.
There are over 20 typhoons every year, and given the archipelago’s position in the Ring of Fire, other natural disasters often test the resolve of Filipinos, whether they live in Metro Manila or a rural community like San Simon in Cagayan de Oro City. Fiber lines flood; microwave towers fall over; and often the entire country is left to rely on satellite internet services to remain connected and safe, he explains.
Given those geographic challenges, just 11,000 of the country’s 42,000 barangays are covered by fiber today, and many of those left unconnected are what the governent o has identified as Geographically Isolated and Disadvantaged Areas (GIDA), Baculio says.
So what’s next for Orbits? As I write this piece, JunBacs is currently into organizing his Orbits Team, ever inspired and ready to jumpstart the internet satellite connectivity project on a nation-wide scale.
Very soon, JunBacs will be humming the ‘Eye
of the Tiger’, instead of the ‘Impossible Dream’ destined to be sidelined to while away his free time with the Orbits Team.
