by Alex Roldan
Sending messages through text is the most popular communication tool among Filipinos. Its popularity play an important role in the lives of the people in this country, thus earning us the moniker of being the text messaging capital of the world. This technology has crept into every imaginable aspect of the Filipino way of life – business, pleasure, personal entertainment and even public debate. One of the highlights of its power potential is the popular uprising that forced former President Joseph Estrada to step down. That showed just how powerful SMS texting is as a new and faster way of broadcasting everything from private thoughts to political commentary and organizing for mass actions.
But, for ordinary Filipinos, text messages bring them freedom and comfort. Communicating with families, friends and for whatever purpose becomes easier so that sending or receiving messages such as “k” and “tnx” soothes feelings of completeness.
What happens if suddenly your phone stops sending your text message and instead flashes back a message to “check operator?” You feel frustrated, right? Loading stations everywhere bring instant relief, that is, if you have the money for it.
But, how would you feel when you are suddenly caught in a situation where you need to respond immediately to a message, but you can’t because some of your load had suddenly joined the spirit world? How many times have you heard people cursing phone companies for their lost precious loads?
Despite Senator Enrile’s experience, this problem has never been responded to accordingly by phone companies.
My recent experience proved that it still exista. I did some some sort of auditingof my phone expenses to see if I could find some inconsistencies in my text messages sent and the load I purchased as the ‘check operator’ reminder has become more frequent on my screen. I am not a heavy user and 99% of the time use the phone only for text messaging, so I can easily notice the discrepancies. Though my phone has limited memory, it does retain some data to prove my point.
Last December 4, I bought P30 worth of SMART Talk and Text load with reference number 430556391311 but I was asked to reload after only 27 text messages sent. I bought another P30 load on December 6, reference number 410331727853 and again was asked to load after 27 messages sent. I thought that, perhaps, I had missed counting, but I became furious when I could not make an emergency call on December 10 after learning that my P30 December 9 load purchase, reference number 420677517733, lasted only for four text messages. I bought another P30 worth of load, reference number 380227727166 on the same day, but was shocked to learn that it just went puff after only 12 text messages. It did not stop. My 30 peso-load purchase on December 11 joined the dead after only 16 messages!
I believe something has to be done to stop this thievery! Filipinos send an average 400 million text messages a day, or approximately 142 billion text messages a year. You do not need to be a genius to calculate how much money the phone companies are raking in, yet they are not able to upgrade their system to improve their services.
It is expected that the phone companies’ system will again be clogged with text messages during the Christmas and New Year holidays. I just wonder how much load will also be lost in the process.
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