Before anyone starts hurling an anti-Tito Sotto dagger at me, let me point out that I didn’t coin the phrase, and neither did my daughter from whom I heard it tonight. But lack of attribution isn’t the point of this piece but, rather, the implications that the transition from “word-of- mouth” to “word-of-mouse” presents.
Gone are the days of the neighborhood tsismis that, mercifully, rarely extended beyond the boundaries of thebarangay. That was word-of- mouth. These days, when the online edition of a Manila paper posts a gossipy item on the chief of staff of the senate president, it is read and shared, shared and read, read and shared virally across the globe – with the click of a mouse. In an instant.
By the end of the day, millions will have heard about the juicy piece. Worse yet, multiple permutations will have developed from the original story, each one jucier than the next.
Anyone who was once a boy scout will probably recall the communications game that was played at jamborees. A message would be passed from one scout to another, down a long line of scouts, with the objective of seeing how the original message would be preserved by the time it reached the end of the line.
Invariably, the message would end up badly muddled and mangled. In a manner of speaking, if the original message was that Pedro was sick, by the time, it got midway, he would be reported as dead. And by the time the message got to the end of the line, he would have been resurrected.
Welcome to the Age of FaceBook and Twitter, Google and YouTube, Wikepedia and WikiLeaks and all of the other applications of the World Wide Web that George Orwell warned against.
Welcome, too, to the era of the omnipresent mobile-phone-cum-camera that instantaneously transmits around the globe events as they happen, including those moments aptly described as en flagrante delicto.
And, worst of all, welcome to the age of the Eternal Archives. The Library in the Clouds. The indestructible filing cabinet of all your good and bad deeds, profundities and stupidities, acts best remembered and those you would rather forget.
On YouTube, the other day, there was a video showing an ostensibly clairvoyant individual who could tell one mesmerized subject after another some of the best-kept secrets of their lives. It was truly amazing. How did he know those things? The punchline of the video put it bluntly: Everything the clairvoyant said, he picked off the Internet.
Indeed, the digital phenomenon, wielding the power of instant and far-reaching communications, has been supplemented and made more potent by another phenomenon: the Social Media Syndrome.
To better appreciate SMS, simply log on to FaceBook and note how your “friends” and “friends of friends” post their innermost thoughts, anxieties, aspirations, likes, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, passions and frustrations, and secrets normally shared only in the most intimate moments with a select few.
I know of individuals who are by nature taciturn but who are transformed, from very private Dr. Jekylls, into Mr. Hydes of digital loquaciousness and verbosity. And worse yet, a cornucopia of intimate and, sometimes, incriminating information.
The trouble is, the attitude of people – from the average Juan, Maria and Jose to the highest officials in the land – does not seem to have changed with the transition from word-of-mouth to word-of-mouse. People are still acting and talking as if their statements and their actuations, as well as their indiscretions, will not be broadcast beyond the confines of their private offices or homes.
This is where SMS has struck like a plague.
The past few days have seen SMS afflict the arguably honorable members of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, a man of no mean intellect, engaged Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Senator Alan Peter Cayetano in a war of words befitting uneducated street urchins and reminiscent of a slapstick routine by Tugak and Pugak. And then along comes Senator Ping Lacson and Santiago in a parallel verbal bout, no less embarrassing.
And all of these exchanges – WE REPEAT, ALL OF THESE EXCHANGES – have been instantaneously transmitted around the world by word-of-mouse. And have been digitally preserved for ages and ages to come.
Is there anything in the dignity of the senate president and the senators that has been left untarnished?
Of course, one can argue that this contest of exposing each other’s skeletons, for all of their shameful implications, has been mitigated by another phenomenon that has afflicted, not just the Philippines, but the United States and some of the leading countries of the world.
The phenomenon is called, The Demise of Shame.
If one is to believe the apologists for shameful behavior, shame – or old-fashioned hiya – is no longer in fashion. According to them, the things that “decent” people used to be embarrassed about – like being caught lying, cheating or stealing or adultery and bigamy – have become “normal behavior” among the most respectable individuals.
And for those who still feel a sense of shame, these apologists provide the reassuring advice: Lumilipas din ang hiya. Shame will pass. And no one will remember.
But what is overlooked by these apologists for shameful behavior, as well as those who engage in it, is that, with the advent of the Digital Age comes a guarantee that shameful behavior and soiled reputations will be preserved in cyberspace for future generations to access.
Thus, in the year 2113, the great-great-great-great grandchildren of Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago may be asked by the great-great-great-great grandchildren of Senator Ping Lacson if it was true that their ancestor was a “crusading crook.”
And if the descendants of Defensor-Santiago were to express indignation at this and demand proof, Lacson’s descendants could simply click a mouse and download the verbatims plus photographs of that unfortunate exchange which, in an earlier decade, could simply have gone in one ear and out the other.
Of course, it’s quite possible that in 2113, the Heroes of the Philippines will be those who lie, cheat and steal. And it’s quite possible that crusading crooks will be accorded the highest honors.
In such a case, the honorable members of the Senate, as well as those who habitually lie, cheat and steal, have nothing to worry about.
In fact, the national slogan in the year 2113 could well be: “Walanghiya talaga!” And that would be said in extreme admiration.
