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Saturday, July 09, 2005
Roperos: Bugging mania
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
It seems we are a people who, when we latch on to something we believe is good, or pleasurable, or serviceable, or uniquely useful to our interest, do not hesitate to go overboard for it, if need be. Witness the cell phone craze.
There have been speculations about what really happened to the purported bugged conversations between the President and a Commission on Elections official. Whether such conversations took place or not, it has shaken the foundations of this republic.
I cannot say whether I believe or not the authenticity of the tapes. But the fact that they have been transcribed, and part of their content has found print in some dailies, the matter has become rather difficult to controvert.
But the question is, who produced the tapes? Who did the bugging and what was the real motive behind it?
If it was the Malacañang phone that was bugged, the issue of national security immediately jumps out. It would mean the open accessibility of the nation’s secrets. But it appears the phone of the Comelec official was the one bugged, considering the number of people whose conversations with the Comelec official are in the tape.
What I have been told is that the tapes could run for about 120 hours. And the voices of some of the nation’s leaders are in it. There was even a naughty twinkle in my informant’s eye when he said that some of portions of the tape revealed private and personal facts about the lives of certain public officials.
Now, that is really something that should push the “bugging” activity to further limits, and become a sort of hobby to those with the enthusiasm, the skills, the equipment, and the compelling underlying motive to do so.
Just like the tape that surfaced in Cebu where a conversation regarding the negotiation about the cost of influencing the decision over a court case, was discussed. Now, I never could imagine that dialogues over such matters as decisions of court cases would be an interesting subject to bug.
It seems that bugging of communications equipment has been a practice since way back except that nobody has been caught with an enormous capacity to hurt people other than himself. Like the ones that was just discovered about the court case. Now, people have realized the extent of the activity and effectiveness of the practice if done properly to achieve an interesting end.
It should be noted, though, that the practice is illegal. In other words, it is a waste of time and effort to produce it since it cannot be used as evidence in any case before any court. Unfortunately, though, people just love to hear and talk about them.
This just shows that our public loves rumor mongering. I don’t know, but it seems to have become part of our culture, and has become embedded in our sets of moral values that it is now difficult to shake off. Consider, for example, the thousands of text messages sent around the country bearing no useful info except the capability to make us laugh.
Take this text message I received. It is a sick joke about Cardinal Sin who, before he died, was said to have summoned the First Couple to his deathbed.
Asked by the First Couple why he had called them, the Cardinal reportedly expressed his desire to die like Jesus Christ, with two thieves on either side of him.
(July 9, 2005 issue)
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