Tattle-tale texting sweeps the
Philippines By Marco Garrido
MANILA - Elections bring out the
best jokes. For instance, what do you call the Funniest
Philippine Joke? goes one commonly circulated text
message - a short message sent via mobile phones. Why,
FPJ! Ha, ha, ha. There are funnier jokes, thankfully,
but they
lose their
punch in translation and without cultural context.
These jokes comprise part of an extra tide of
texts sweeping the Filipino population, regarded as
cultural predisposed to gossip, this election season.
But the fact that presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr
(FPJ) has been this season's favorite butt hardly
reflects upon his odds. Joseph Estrada was similarly
roasted in 1998 but ended up becoming president by one
of the largest margins in Philippine history. (He even
encouraged jokes at his expense, such as the one
purporting that, during his stint as senator, Estrada
sought to repeal the troublesome law of supply and
demand.)
Texts usually serve as a kind of social
barometer in the Philippines, indexing popular attitudes
and apprehensions. And in this year's election, perhaps
more deliberately than in the past, texting is being
used as a mode of campaigning. Presidential candidate
Ping Lacson relies on a "texting brigade" - a group of
volunteers whose sole job is to send out text messages -
to propagandize, disseminate his calendar, and counter
negative publicity. "Of course there is a fax machine,
there is e-mail," said Lacson's campaign strategist
Raymond Burgos, "but not everybody knows how to use the
Internet, whereas 100 percent of our supporters have
cellular phones."
Candidate Raul Roco retains a
similar army of "youth texters". With each texter
typically sending out 50 messages a day, and with each
message usually being further circulated by its
recipients, the potential to reach numerous voters is
vast. Industry estimates put the number of cell-phone
owners at 20 million and the number of text messages
sent daily at 100 million. The latest upgrades even
allow candidates to send their campaign jingles as
ringtones and their posters as wallpaper (images placed
on a cell-phone screens). Texting has become a natural
campaigning tool because it is cheap (at P1 per message
that's less than 2 US cents), it's relay is nearly
immediate and because Filipinos have adopted it as a
familiar, even beloved, mode of communication.
Keeping in touch, keeping tabs Texting
has come a long way since Briton Neil Papworth sent the
first text - "Merry Christmas" - to his colleagues at
Vodaphone on December 3, 1992. What began as an operator
service through which carriers could inform their
customers of network glitches, has become, on shores far
from the United Kingdom, a common way of keeping in
touch and keeping tabs. Texting has become so popular,
in fact, that the Catholic Church explicitly had to ban
confessions by text.
The Philippine military
uses texting to counter insurgency; it has hotlines set
up to receive intelligence by text. Likewise, texting is
used to keep the military in check; soldiers can text in
complaints or reports of graft. The governor of the
central bank regularly fields questions from reporters
via text. Various public-interest groups solicit texts
reporting corruption, pollution and mistresses (as an
index of corruption).
Like other forms of
technologically mediated communication, texting allows
for an "extensiveness" that is at once immediate and
partial. It is immediate in terms of time and space;
that is, communication is instantaneous and can be
invasive. And it is partial insofar as the circumstances
of one's textmate - including his identity - can be
withheld or fabricated. In terms of keeping tabs, this
makes texting a useful but imperfect tool. While its
anonymity may encourage reports, it also puts into
question their veracity.
Coup de
text Texting has already made Philippine history.
There is a mural in Manila - a Filipino man dressed in
native garb with a cell phone to his ear - memorializing
the role of texting in sparking the People Power
uprising that deposed president Joseph Estrada. The
speed with which that uprising, known as EDSA 2, cohered
owes itself to the flood of terse messages -
communicating information, such as where to gather, more
than indignation - sent in the wake of Estrada's
impeachment trial. Text volume then was about two to
three times the normal rate. "Without texting, Estrada
probably would have lasted for a few more months or
probably a year or two," said Teddy Casino, an EDSA 2
organizer. "But texting made everything faster."
Part of this speed had to do with the emergence
of a common perspective - a general sense that justice
had been miscarried. Through texting, not only could the
public witness the trial unfold on television, they
could comment on what was happening. But while texting
helped form the common perspective that inspired EDSA 2,
it did so along class lines, mainly among those who
could afford the technology.
Still, this example
proves that texting clearly is a formidable tool of
mobilization. And when it comes to such technology, the
Philippines is not alone; texting is being utilized for
political ends throughout the world.
In the wake
of last month's train bombing in Madrid, massive
protests were organized in a matter of hours with the
help of texting. In what became known as "the night of
short text messages", thousands of people gathered in
front of the headquarters of Spain's former ruling
party, Partido Popular, to protest the lack of
transparency in the investigation of the bombing and the
government's support for the war on Iraq. One text read:
"Your war, our dead."
In Iran, after a
government clampdown on reformists in the final weeks of
parliamentary elections, a text message circulated
protesting, "We will not take part in the funeral for
freedom."
Through texting, demonstrations have
been organized against Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Jean
Marie Le Pen in France. South Korean President Roh
Moo-hyun's electoral victory has been attributed to a
midnight-hour text campaign by his supporters. Both
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's
National Front (Barisan Nasional) coalition and the
opposition Islamic party, Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS),
made extensive use of text messaging in the March
elections. Abdullah's party alone sent out more than
50,000 texts a day. PAS - which advocates turning
Malaysia into a theocracy - sent messages saying "Jihad
for the well-being of the world and the afterlife."
A gossip society Part of texting's
appeal for Filipinos probably has to do with the fact
that it feeds a pre-existing cultural urge, namely to
rumor-monger. Texting enables a close-knit and factional
society to share information immediately. The problems
are, one, much of this information is inaccurate, and,
two, the perpetrators of misinformation can remain
anonymous - that is, they can impugn with impunity.
Without further investigation it can be
impossible to tell whether the information conveyed
through text is true or false. That most people don't
investigate further makes "black propaganda", as it is
known in the Philippines, particularly damaging.
Recently, texts circulated alleging that
vice-presidential candidate Loren Legarda had, as
senator, advocated bills cutting the pay of teachers,
soldiers and firefighters. Another rampantly circulated
text alleged that Poe had fathered a love child with an
actress. It turned out the former text was false and the
latter true, but how could their recipients tell the
difference? Just like gossip, the lines defining the
factual, the hyperbolic and the fabricated become
indistinct.
The power of texting to disseminate
information widely without being able to verify it can
have a destabilizing effect. The scandals that have
tumbled out one upon the other in the past few months -
the first months of the election season - have been
exacerbated by disingenuous texts. The Magdalo soldiers'
coup attempt; the Jose Pidal expose, in which Senator
Panfilo Lacson accused First Gentleman Jose Miguel
Arroyo of having amassed at least P270 million (US$4.8
million) in bank accounts bearing the name "Jose Pidal";
the impeachment case against Chief Justice Hilario
Davide Jr; the controversy over Poe's citizenship - all
went down in a swirl of text messaging. Even then, texts
continue, reporting further coup attempts and further
anomalies, anticipating the Supreme Court ruling on
Poe's eligibility to run for president and as always,
rallying the public to indignant protest.
Thus,
there is no reason to think that the flow of
disingenuous texts will become any less rabid now in the
most volatile of seasons. And there is every reason to
expect these texts to amplify the coming tumult.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All
rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
lose their
punch in translation and without cultural context.
