Text messages

E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

Text messages

Sunday, 04 24, 2005

In a recent case involving a court employee, the Supreme Court decided that SMS - those badly spelled messages we send through our cell phones - are perfectly admissible as evidence. The employee had used her cell phone to extort money to fix a case, without suspecting that her message might as well have been a typewritten note with her signature on it. She will be known as the first ever to be convicted by text.

The creative uses of the cell phone have been as varied as the frame of mind of its users. At its most mindless application, teenagers use it to talk to each other the whole day - and they are within the same room! Down-and-out lawyers whip their phones out and pretend they are talking to a succession of clients. Cellphone companies invade your privacy by flooding your inbox with unsolicited messages designed to inveigle you to download this ringtone or that screensaver, or to enlist in a special promo that ultimately costs you an arm and a leg. Shysters and scammers use it to inform you that “ur sim # won fers prize wd P9T 2day in charity fundracing. 4 dtails kol me ryt now.” Now, this kind of message definitely costs more than an arm and a leg, as the countless number of gullible rubes who have fallen for it found out. Thus, whether bad or good, comforting or threatening, informative or misleading, serious or comical, text messages have become an inescapable part of our lives. When one considers the cost of the avalanche of messages that glutted the cell phones during last year’s elections alone, one wonders if it’s really true that we are a country where talk is cheap.

Aside from talk being cheap, the Filipino’s propensity for a skewed sense of humor in his text messages is - to quote malapropism-spouting friend, Dan Pinto - “legionary.” The Filipino’s sense of the macabre, is legend; he makes light of the seriousness of any event and heaps derision on the foibles of people, public figures especially, whom he considers deserving of disrespect. This is his way of venting off his frustrations at situations he could not personally control or influence. Thus the text message becomes his personal electronic graffito.

Take for instance this left-handed message from Leina de Legazpi, which gained the rounds while the cardinals were closeted in the Sistine Chapel trying to choose the successor to John Paul the Great: “The cardinals electing the next pope are lucky. They don’t have the Philippine Congress acting as a board of canvassers.” The political undertone is obvious, and the reference to the unopened election returns to unearth the truth is none too subtle.

Definitely, it is unthinkable to expect a protest from one of the losing cardinals in the three rounds of voting, but maybe - just maybe - it would do well for Congress next time it acts as a board of canvassers to sequester its members until the results are in, so that the entire nation would not know what happened; the tally shielded from the electorate; and the results accepted as they are reported out. A rejoinder to Leina’s message is a sum of our frustrations: “Sana conclave na rin ang pagpili ng presidente.”

A member of Congress, smarting from the insinuation, texted an incorrect correction: “He! Sourgrapes!” He comes from a place down south where the birds, the bees, and the turtles voted in the last elections.

Here are other replies from Leina’s “politically correct” text message:

“Noted” was the terse answer of those who do not have any sense of humor. One Ilocano texter tried to impress with “Reconozca” for an answer, to cover up for his limited knowledge of the language of the Vatican.

Somebody who is obviously not a friend of the Comelec chairman quipped: “The cardinals refused Abalos’ offer to count the votes.”

A supporter of Fernando Poe, Jr., who has been joined by Karol Wojtyla in that Great Precinct in the Sky, added: “Right ka diyan. FPJ was very unlucky.”

With reference to grand deception done in the PCIB areas - Pampanga, Cebu, Iloilo, Bohol - where somebody won big against all expectations but in accordance with pre-calculations, Sonny Hong who is a lapsed Catholic butted in: “Huwag kang makakasiguro. May taga-Cebu sa conclave!” A critic of Cardinal Sin, or perhaps just a closet humorist, had this to say: Buti na lang walang absentee voting. Kung hindi, makakaboto si Sin.”

Thus the “textual intercourse” among jokesters spread from cellphone to cellphone. A friend of the eminent and wisely aging election lawyer Boy Brillantes texted: “Boy will not be allowed to argue. The ballots are in Latin so he would not know manifest error from a fraudulent manifest. At wala rin transposition from ER to SOV to COC. Besides, he is past 80, so he cannot be at the Sistine Chapel!”

Somebody who was extra-naughty, said: “The next pope, if elected via fraud, will adopt the name Papa F. Pancratius de pers, or Papa Josephus de V.” That took a while to sink in, but it really floored me!

The nuns were not spared: “The nuns and Namfrel should help. Wala bang walk-out?” Well, one does not walk out if he’s supposed to be suffused by the Holy Spirit; besides, there are no ballot boxes in the Chapel for the nuns to protect.

On the lack of ballot boxes, a friend who remembers Rep. Manuel Zamora’s heroic gesture during the canvassing said: “Walang silbi si W’ay Kurat. Walang ballot boxes na kakargahin.”

There was no need for a survey of Catholics to guide the cardinals in making their choice; there were no exit polls either. So one wise guy rued: “Sayang, walang kita dito si Mahar at si Pepe.”

Harking back to the infamous disqualification case against FPJ, Jun Ortile wrote in: “Ratzinger is not Italian. He will never be pope. He should have gone to the Archives for a change in citizenship.”

Cardinal Ratzinger, who has gained a reputation as “God’s Rottweiler” was even derided for being too high profile in the run-up to the conclave: “Dapat disqualified si Ratzinger. Over da limit na siya. Palagi siya nasa CNN.”

Or a reference to the ubiquitous cards bearing the name and likeness of a candidate: “Pinamudmod ang PhilHealth cards sa Roma. Baka manalo ang Filipinong papa.”

I had to stop receiving and forwarding the text messages when Reggie Pastrana chastised me: “You irreverent Ilocano lawyer. Shut up! Shut up!”

We did not sleep until after the new pontiff had delivered his Orbi et Urbi. By then, the textual intercourse had spent itself. The sanctity of the moment inspired this simple message: “Long live Pope Benedict XVI!”



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