Heaven, Purgatory and Hell: Forward...and backward...

Before BPOs even became the number one industry in the Philippines, we were tagged as the TEXTING capital of the world.

Note that this phenomenon was BEFORE the Americans and Europeans even learned how to send SMS!

We are so text crazy (I don't know if this is correct grammar) that the average Filipino most likely owns a minimum of TWO mobile phones.

Which goes to the meat of this blog.

Have you ever received a text message that goes something like this:

TODAY IS THE GOD'S GIFT TO YOU. HE IS GOOD AND HE PROVIDES US EVERYTHING.
TODAY I SHARE WITH YOU THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP AND I THANK YOU FOR BEING MY FRIEND.
PRAISE HIM WHO HAS GIVEN US HEALTH AND WEALTH.

Forward this to 10 other people - including me if you consider me a friend - and a miracle will happen in 3 days.
If you don't do this now, something bad will happen to you. A friend of mine did not believe and is now sick and lost his job.
Pass this on if you love God.

Watdf**k is the matter with this message? It's nothing but a chain text (remember those chain letters when we were kids?)! And if there is something really awful in these chain text messages - it's the fact that it's not FREE!!!!!! Darn!

I am sure that even God rolls over on His belly and scorns upon the Pinoys who seem to be wanton and dazed at the stupidity and mediocrity of believing in chain texts. I recall sometime ago, the Church took a stand on chain letters and told the faith not to believe in them. So why isn't anyone from the cloak saying something about this? In cahoots? Geez!!!!

First of all, yes you are my friend. But I don't need to keep sending you this message back and forth so that we can ink our friendship! Second, God surely loves us - after all, He sent His only son to be born and then die for us! He did not text us nor did any message miraculously appear on your celfone from GOD. Thirdly, 70% of the Pinoys live below the poverty line. They can't even make heads or tails with the food that they will serve on the table - and they turn to texting each other back some thwarted message like this! OMG!!! Finally, if you know how to count, and your phone is able to do that - remember that the mobile phone companies charge anywhere from P0.50-P1.00 for every 160 characters (inclusive of spaces) you type!!!!! [Of course I guess that's why there are so many Sun Cellular subscribers - therefore accounting for the TWO PHONES per Filipino, because of the text and call all you can as long as you're within their network.]

And here's the rub - there's a difference in believing and fanaticism. Whoever invented this chain text is pulling in the big bucks (and I have a strange feeling that one of the idiots from the celphone company started this darn trend). And the average Pinoy is in starvation mode. [Tapos mag rereklamo na wala na silang load o ang mahal ng kanilang bill na babayaran - sanamagan talaga!]

We keep forwarding these text messages, which are already mindless and robotic! [And when it pops up, I simply press - DELETE message.]

Like the stand of the Church regarding chain letters decades ago, where they called it a SIN, it is SINFUL as well to deprive ordinary people of honestly earned meager livelihood only for the benefit of the mobile phone companies.

Responsible texting is something that we need to educate the Pinoys on. It should help temper the indescribably silly use of SMS as an appropriate means of communication.

When will we ever learn? We keep forwarding mediocrity by moving backwards in our ways...geez...how more pathetic can we get?