THE CONVENIENCE and advantages of text may be obvious in the way we conduct our lives at home and at work, but it's only starting to be apparent in the influence it has in the civic life of the nation. The role of texting in EDSA 2 has opened our eyes to the power and potential it has in mobilizing public opinion and warm bodies to political action.

According to Gerry Kaimo, an avid texter and spokeperson of the Philippine League for Democratic Telecommunications, the first text messages began with news about the houses of Erap and his mistresses, and then escalated to other exposés about corruption in the presidency. "When the impeachment trial began," says Kaimo, "people used text to share their personal knowledge to fill in the gaps in the news and to counter Malacañang propaganda." That text could not be traced made it even more seductive to the digitally rebellious.

Text was also instrumental in mobilizing the thousands of unorganized and unaffiliated whose only ticket to the increasingly frequent rallies against President Estrada was a texted invitation on their—or their or neighbor's—mobile phone. And when the Senate impeachment trial voted to keep the Jose Velarde envelope sealed, it was a text brigade calling for a noise barrage that culminated in EDSA 2 a few days later.

What makes text messaging such a powerful tool is its ability to relay alternative political information from the bottom up. At no other time in modern history do citizens have the capability to broadcast information to millions of others as they do now. Broadcast and print media grapple with government regulations and pressure, as well as sometimes- restrictive editorial policies. In contrast, text does away completely with the traditional gatekeepers of news and sends unfiltered political information through the network in a speed faster than it takes for the traditional mass media to produce and disseminate.

While text messaging is vulnerable to manipulation and misinformation, the network of users is a self-regulating one where the incredible is trashed and the believable passed forward—at least more often than not. Today, many texters are suspicious of messages announcing the death of anyone from the Pope to celebrities, but some politicians do take their texts seriously. On the Senate floor, senators just as easily quote from text messages as they do from traditional sources like witnesses, experts, and academic research. Not surprisingly, texted information fills the gaps where official information is absent or deliberately silent such as the occasional Luzon-wide brownout.

What texting creates then is the opposite of establishment media: a grassroots broadcast network where content is developed through an organic system of collaboration and verification and where information flows freely across the network. Call it the ultimate model of democratic media. Establishment media is a long way from attaining the hyper-democracy of text, but attempts to incorporate the democratic and interactive text experience is taking form in television and radio. Initiated in part by revenue-sharing arrangements with the telecommunications companies that provide text service, broadcast networks invite texters to send in their opinions and complaints, join surveys, and ask questions to guests as a way of democratizing the news. One newscast even gives viewers the option of customizing their news by choosing among a list of topics to include in the nightly coverage.

While some may be cynical about the attempts to profit from the sudden proliferation in interactive news formats, few will deny that interactive text will be an essential function of the future of broadcast news and entertainment. Already, television programmers are conceptualizing shows where viewers text in their preferences and decide how stories end, which character stays alive or gets pregnant, among other plot details.

Clearly, the feature of text messaging that makes it a powerful tool in a free-market democracy is the ability to send feedback instantaneously. In politics, it circumvents the lobby group and cordon sanitaire and provides direct access between the governed and those who govern. In commerce, brokers and middlemen are sidestepped as consumers deal directly with producers. In fact, it's hard to imagine any aspect of life that isn't made more efficient by the direct access text provides.

WITH TEXT breaking down traditional barriers of communication in families, communities, business, and civic life, are we seeing the rise of an informed and empowered citizen? Has text accomplished more for democracy, free speech, and equality than any political or social movement could ever dream of accomplishing? All this would be true if it weren't for the one important fact that all this talk of revolution comes at a rather hefty price.

The popularity and ubiquity of texting make it clear that we are entering a new era where much more of the human experience is mediated by electronic and telecommunications networks. As we rely more and more on text for our day-to-day communication, business transactions, civic responsibilities, and personal leisure, we begin to be controlled by the few telecommunications giants who own the networks where all modern activity is increasingly taking place. While texting promises to eliminate the traditional gatekeeping function of governments and media, it is in turn creating new gatekeepers who determine the conditions, terms, and, of course, price for which millions of Filipinos gain access to each other. As the futurist Jeremy Rifkin observes, "The absorption of the cultural sphere into the commercial sphere signals a fundamental change in human relationships with troubling consequences for the future of society."

In the Philippine context, these consequences can already be seen in the way access to culture becomes a paid-for experience. Because our modern lifestyle has become so dependent on access to the network of mobile-phone subscribers, membership to our culture—the shared experiences with people—becomes based less on traditional criteria like location, ethnicity, kinship ties, or religion—but rather on affordability and our ability to purchase access to the network.

This phenomenon is creating a new marginalized class of disconnected Filipinos. The new class division of the haves and the have-nots is no longer based on access to property and capital, but between those with access to the network, and thus the mainstream culture, and those who don't. Despite the falling prices of mobile phones, there remain millions of Filipinos who can neither afford nor have access to one.

In sparsely populated areas of the country where the installation of cell sites is both a risky and unprofitable venture, communities are excluded from the network altogether. As for the 12 million or so plugged into the culture via their personal mobile phones, the price of staying connected depends largely on how long you wish to access the network. Among the young generation of texters, research shows that money spent on prepaid cellular phone cards is fast catching up with money spent on meals. Putting it differently, that's the price they pay to experience life.

Gone are the days when mobile phones simply meant convenience for the perennially mobile. Today, it is a passport to life itself and citizenship in the networked future. "We've become so dependent on them that leaving your phone at home is like leaving without your underwear," says Dadi Santos. That's hardly an exaggeration for anyone with a cell phone and text lifestyle. All the more for the millions of disconnected who are doubly marginalized by poverty and information deficiency.

To bridge the widening gap between the connected and the disconnected, the role of government must be reconsidered at a time when deregulation in the telecoms industry is the global standard. "The NTC (National Telecommunications Commission) should be independent or we'll be at the mercy of the phone companies," warns Gerry Kaimo.

Ultimately, it's not just a question of who can or cannot gain access to the network, but more significantly, what types of experiences and cultures we seek to access in the network. When the network replaces traditional culture, we risk becoming a society of wired strangers bound together by commercial activity. And when face-to-face conversation—the building block of social trust—is replaced by text messaging and electronic communication, there will be nothing to keep dishonesty and distrust from creeping into our daily lives.

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PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM