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Cell Phone Craze May Be Key to Philippines' Future
Nation a hotbed of 'texting'
Benjamin Pimentel, Chronicle Staff Writer Sunday, February 11, 2001
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Manila, Philippines -- Afraid of attracting further media attention, Onel de Guzman skipped the street protests that toppled President Joseph Estrada last month.

But as he watched the People Power II uprising on television, the suspected mastermind of the "Love Bug" virus became even more convinced of where the future lies in the high-tech revolution: broadening cell phone technology for a variety of uses.

"This is big business," he said. "You can really make a lot of money in this."

Text messages sent via cell phones helped mobilize a million people in the mass demonstrations that eventually drove Estrada out of office and swept President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo into power.

"The cell phone is the symbol of this revolution," said activist and political analyst Alex Magno.

Now, Philippine business leaders hope the cell phone will become the symbol of the country's recovery.

The economy went into a tailspin under Estrada, who was accused of corruption and cronyism during his 2 1/2-year reign. But the mood has become more upbeat under Arroyo, who has vowed to build more high-tech infrastructure and develop policies and laws to help the industry grow.

"There's an air of optimism," said businessman and Web pioneer Jim Ayson.

That optimism is based partly on the Philippines' reputation as the world's texting capital.

Up to 50 million text messages are sent here every day, said Ramon Isberto, spokesman for Smart Communications, one of the two top cellular phone service companies in the country. That figure jumped to about 100 million at the height of the anti-Estrada uprising, he said, adding, "The industry has grown quite rapidly."

Philippine companies hope to turn that culture into a competitive advantage and are exploring ways to expand services, such as letting users pay bills or make bank transactions via cell phones, he said.

The cell phone craze was led by Filipino youths, who turned texting from a fad into a national obsession.

"In a few years, texting started developing a subculture and that subculture went mainstream," Isberto said. "We have an entire generation of Filipinos who are unintimidated and have no fear of using cell phones for a variety of purposes."

Texting took off fast in the Philippines because it's cheaper than making calls, analysts say. Text messages cost only 2 cents each, while calls cost as much as 10 times more.

Texting is also convenient for people who don't like long phone conversations or who find themselves having to make a call in a noisy place, Ayson said.

"Some Americans wonder how you can actually punch letters on a small keypad, " said Ayson. "Some Filipino teenagers can do it blindfolded. I can't do that - - but I can text while driving."

At Manila restaurants and malls, Filipinos of all ages can be seen using their thumbs to punch keys on their cell phones, while eating, chatting with friends or window shopping.

Sitting at a coffee shop at Robinson's mall, Amy Gonzalez, a 23-year-old real-estate broker, said her cell phone has become a vital part of her life.

"Sometimes, when I don't even get one message for a long time, I feel sad," she said. "If my battery is running low, I don't know what I'm going to do. At night, before going to sleep, I text my friends, 'Good night.' "

At another restaurant across town, de Guzman, who sends up to 100 text messages a day, pulled out his pink Nokia 3210 cell phone with a blue screen --
and proceeded to take it apart.

"You see, this is easier to study than a computer," he said showing the insides of the gadget. "It's small and it's easy to see how the signals work. I have fun with it."
De Guzman said his cell phone experiments have already taught him how to make free calls and send free text messages.

"They still have a lot to fix," he said, referring to Philippine cell phone companies. "There are still many bugs in their systems. They're still sloppy."

Isberto said the companies are developing ways to make their systems hacker- free. "But we don't really want to talk about it," he said, "because the more you say that you can't be hacked, the more they'll try to hack you."

Underscoring the industry's upbeat mood, Isberto had this message for the Philippines' most notorious hacker: "Maybe you'd want to work for us."

E-mail Benjamin Pimentel at [email protected].