Punchline
Black propaganda via SMS
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
TEXT messages alleging wrongdoing and illegal activities of candidates are dime a dozen these days.
Allegations of foreign citizenship, ill-gotten wealth, frail health, immoral lives, womanizing, violent background, smuggling, drug trafficking and addiction, school drop-out, mental ailment, rape, swindling, etc. are freely peddled via text messages sent from prepaid sim cards by persons with sinister plans who conveniently hide behind the anonymity provided by unregistered sim cards.
These messages do not even offer an iota of record of evidence, and yet the anonymous senders who lose nothing by crafting ridiculous and incredible stories know well enough that there are the gullible, the uninitiated and the ignorant among who will still take these as truths.
Here’s a sample: “Kumpirmado! Sen. Trillanes and Sen. Alan Cayetano authored a Bill that will Reduce Pension Benefits of AFP, PNP,, BJNP, BFP & Teachers, 2 months vacation No work No pay. Sen Cayetano is Mastermind of Said Senate bill. Pls pass 2 teachers & Pensioners. How SAD! Wag iboto!” Pure nonsense.
Senator Loren Legarda was the subject of a similar dirty trick. In her case, the black propagandist alleges that she filed a bill seeking the reduction of all government employees. Evidently, the source was the same but how was one to know?
The irony of it all is when an affected candidate reacts via text, or worse, via a press conference or press release, it only confirms to the anonymous sender that the dirty trick or black propaganda has achieved its objective – to distract and afflict the candidate and his/her supporters with a lie and a libelous statement that nobody can be held accountable for.
Ms. Legarda was visibly affected. She reacted and went to the extent of getting a certification from the senate that there is no such bill. The anonymous dirty trick expert and his patron surely had a good laugh about it, thanks to unregistered prepaid sim cards!
While such texts may simply be dismissed by the knowledgeable and well-informed as mere nuisance, the insidious effect of the criminal practice actually poses grave hazard to the citizenry.
Imagine your family being ruined all because someone who felt he/she had a score to settle with one of your family members decided to embarrass the family by sending a text blast message to 5,000 celllphones from an unregistered sim card linking a member of the family to a false, baseless concoction. What recourse do you have? None.
It’s time to junk the freedom of expression clause as the argument to oppose the move to require the registration of all sim card users. The freedom of expression must be limited to the extent of exacting accountability from those who misuse it.
Let’s prod our next batch of legislators in the House and Senate to file and support a bill requiring the registration of prepaid sim cards to help ensure that society is safe and protected from criminal minds who use technology for criminal purposes.
The effect of an anonymous text message intended to threaten or libel anyone is no different from a statement published or uttered on radio. The big difference lies in the absence of accountability.
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LP’s STRATEGY. The results of the survey on voters’ preferences in Pangasinan reportedly commissioned by a certain David Sanchez and conducted by Data Advisors Inc. are certainly making the LP candidates for provincial posts nervous and the NPC comfortable.
But from where we sit, the results can only be appreciated prospectively and possibly from this perspective: The LP provincial bets have to double up and the NPC team should not be tempted to let its guard down.
The poor showing of the LP Nani-Art team can perhaps be attributed largely to its failure to convince their constituency that it can do better than the present administration. What possibly backfired was the seeming main strategy, which is to merely paint Guv Spines as a gambling lord, murderer and corrupt official all rolled into one, but failing to communicate a vision and plan for a better life in the province.
The problem with the LP strategy is it refuses to contend with the reality that life for Pangasinenses has improved with Guv Spines’ policies on health, environment, education and culture, sports and tourism. People had expected LP to promise more than what they already enjoy under Guv Spines but heard little of it and more on the supposed evil attributes of Guv Spines. Apparently, it hardly matters to them if the LP accuses him of 100 illegal activities because that is the politicians’ business, or so they probably think. Their question: Panun kami ey?
Sadly, the LP’s Nani-Art tandem was off-target while NPC’s Spines-Ferdie simply maintained their course. Tsk-tsk.
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GOOD VS. EVIL. The situation in Dagupan, on the other hand, is clearly a fight between good and evil. I support Fireplayer Gonz’s proposition.
The Benjie-Brian bingo team has a lot of explaining to do about their foray into the city’s funds, yet they would rather pull the wool over their constituents’ eyes by singing and playing bingo to smokescreen their sins against the people, but not after insulting Vice Mayor Belen Fernandez using gutter language that they believe to be apt when communicating with Dagupeños.
Cases have been filed against Mr. Lim with the Ombudsman long before the campaign but they did everything to pooh-pooh it by discrediting Mr. Leo Angeles, including The PUNCH with incredible claims.
They recently outdid themselves by training their pent up rage, as a result of their inability to respond to the corruption issues leveled against them, on the police and on the LP candidates and their supporters.
To my mind, the Benjie-Brian bingo team is actually heaping the worst insults on the Dagupeños themselves, thumbing their noses not only on everyone who take their money in return for their votes but on the people who know and are aware of what they have done to the city but are afraid or lazy to do anything.
The way I see things are evolving, the MadiLIM and MakuLIMLIM ticket may yet win if the ways of Satan in luring voters are allowed to continue without any counterforce to fight them off on their terms – as the good would fight the evil.
Archbishop Soc Villegas has set the tone. Let us put God back in this government! The good men and women whom the BB bingo team insults must take to the streets, talk to the people and persuade them to stop evil in its tracks before the devil turns the city into hell on earth.
Good men who do nothing are conveniently siding with men of evil.
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