SOCIO 10 REPORT

THE CELL PHONE AND THE CROWD: MESSIANIC POLITICS IN THE CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINES

VICENTE L. RAFAEL

ABSTRACT:

 Examines two technologies: CELLPHONE and CROWDS in articulation of popular politics

surrounding PEOPLE POWER II
 Ask about its CONTRASTING WAYS these PROMOTED and CONTAINED expectations for RADICAL
CHANGE
 Reflects on the MESSIANIC UNDERSTANDING OF JUSTICE AND FREEDOM in contemporary PH

 PROMISES

o Lie at the basis of the political and the social

o Forges a sense of futurity and chance
 Allowing for an opening to otherness
o Possibility of promising  engenders the sense of something to come
o Without it there would be no
 Covenants nor consensus nor conflicts
 Sense of contingency
o Can only be made and broken if they can be:
 Witnessed
 Sanctioned
 Confirmed and
 Reaffirmed
o MUST BE REPEATABLE AND CITABLE
 REPITITION
o Underlies the making of promises  PRACTICES OF POLITICS
o Workings of the technical and the mechanical
 TECHNOLOGY
o Elaboration of the technical
o Techniques of SPEECH and WRITING
o Not merely an instrument for engaging in politics
o MODERN TECH
 Have militarized and globalized forms
 Destroyed societies
 Placing in jeopardy the very notion of the social
o Poses a danger by THREATENING to put an end to the possibility of making and
sustaining promises
o Telecommunicative capacity
  Stirs among its users a powerful sense of things to come
 More:
o Expansive
o Inclusive
o Rapid connections and communities
 Can close off possible futures  vitiating the promissory basis of political
practices
 Increase alienation
 Economic dislocation
 Intensifying social inequalities
o Double-capacity of technology to create and undercut the promise of faith in the
political that I attempt to explore in this essay
 PP II
 Class divides via telecomm fantasies materialized in: cps and crowds

Calling

 Telephones = 1885
o Direct comm among colonial BOURGOISE
 Can afford
 Placing them in a position of hearing and being heard directly by the Spanish
COLONIAL STATE
o Telecomm
 Shaping nationalist consciousness
 POR TELEFONO
 By jose rizal
 Eavesdropper narrator
 Wiretaps to EXPOSE HYPROCRISY
o Capacity to reveal what was once hidden, repeat secret and pass messages outside of a
particular circle
o TAPPING AND FORWARDING MESSAGES = led to PP II
 MEDIA DREW THEM AWAY FROM THEIR SEATS AS SPECTATORS TO BECOME PART OF A CROWD
WITH A COMMON WISH

CELL PHONE

 Crucial weapon sa PPII (construction worker: “mitsa”)

 AGENT OF CHANGE
o Technological thing
o Invested with the power to bring forth new forms of sociality
 Went popular in 1999
 REASONS FOR UBIQUITY
o Difficult and expensive having PLDT Landlines, bayantel
 CPs, costs less
o Reach traffic-clogged streets, mas mabilis than postal services
o Obstacles: deteriorating infrastructures made by state
   passing beyond them feels like overcoming the state which has long been
overcome by corruption
 Handy in spreading rumors and jokes eroded PEraps legitimacy
 Cp users
o Became broadcasters
o State cannot control
o Made for people to mass at edsa
o Power to surpass crowded conditions and congested surroundings bc state is inable
o BRING A NEW KIND OF CROWD THAT’S CONCSIOUS OF ITSELF AS A MOVEMENT
HEADED TOWARDS A COMMON GOAL
o Against a mass of anonymous users then they become one with them. Anonymity =
possibilityfor sociality.

TEXTING

 Mas madali, mas mura

 Convergence between the interest if users and providers
 (attachment to them that surpasses the rational and the utilitarian. Can be someone Always
in touch
 Becomes like it by value of its omnipresence and proximity
 Immersed in the crowd yet communicating beyond it unlike computers
 New limb
 Texting:writing
o Grammar and spelling are evaded and rearticulated (because of keypad constraints)
o Not constrained sa penmanship
 Walang required na posture unlike sa pagsusulat
 MOBILITY OF PHONES
o The consciousness of users assumes the mobility and alertness of their gadgets
 GENERATION TXT
o Attachment and skill  young,  troubled the elders
o Dangers of texting
 Stifle literacy
 Eroding young people’s ability to communicate In the real world
 Obstructs comm culturating stupidity
o Gullible and willingness to surrender
 Anti-social behavior
 “loaded weapons”
 Forwarding text messages
o LACK OF AUTHORITY
 PPII  Veritas (Electronic voice of the Catholic Church)
 Notion of the power of texting
 Requires another power to legitimate the text’s meaning
 Power is felt precisely in the multiple transmissions of the same text
  Formation of the crowd  direct response to the repeated call of texts deemed
to be legit bc of authority outside the text messages
o Does not so much name a new social identity  bc unimpeachable source outside the
text
 March to mendiola
o United by anger @ Erap
o DOES NOT MEAN CHANGING THE STATE OR DOING AWAY WITH CLASS DIVISIONS
 Technological revolution
o Sets the question of social revo aside
 In a reformist sense
o Interest of generation text rely on making sure they function to serve to country’s need
o Their demand for accountability
 GENERATION TXT
o Not in challenging the structures of authority
o HISTORICAL AGENCY
 Mobile transmitters of calls that come from elsewhere and which have the
effect of calling others to flood the streets in protest
 MIDDLE CLASS CITIZENS
 Seeks to renovate and keep watch over the state
 Like the 19th century generation (Spanish era) burgis na nationalists
 Discovers the fetish of technology as that which endows one with the
capacity to seek access to and recognition from authority

CROWDING

 Out on streets people have no phones

o Not thru text
o From those around them which they are part of
 Streets on mnl
o Traffic malls overpopulated
o Accessibility
o Surrender of space to those who use it up
 URBAN SPACE
o Haphazardly planned
o Trash, view pangit
o No control in action vs MALLS may control (music)
 POWER OF THE CROWD
o Physical constraints of urban planning
o Blur social distinction = sense of estrangement
 Manila  swelling popu
o No singular and overarching authority
o Impressed in the power of the crowd
 Hold on urban space that eludes control
 ANONIMITY OF THE CROWD
o Difficult to differentiate individuals into social categories (clothes as clues)
 o SOCIAL MIXING contrasts class and lingg hierarchies that govern political and social
structures
 PART OF THE CROWD by becoming other than one’s social self
o SOCIAL HIERARCHY does not disappear on streets
 Arbitrary loosened by anonymous sway of the crowd
 Authority = ability to promote restlessness and movement therefore undermining pressure from
state church and corporate interests to regulate movements
 CROWD AS MEDIUM
o Transforming and gathering elements objects people and things
o Site of generation of expectations and circulation of messages
 CROWD AS TECHNOLOGY
o Calls repeatedly and compelled to respond to it
o Not an instrument of production exploitable surplus for the formation of social order
o Context of and content for a technique of engaging the world
o Place for the generation of the unknown and the unexpected
 CENTRALIZED URBAN PLANNING AND TECHNOLOGIES OF POLICING SEEK TO ROUTINIZE THE
SENSE OF CONTINGENCY GENERATED IN CROWDING
o Gives way to EPOCHAL (where planning fails)
 CROWD
o Takes a telecommunicative power channels for sending messages at a distance and
bringing them up close
o ENMESHED IN A CROWD, ONE FEELS THE POTENTIAL FOR REACHING OUT ACROSS
SOCIAL SPACE AND TEMPORAL DIVIDES

TEXTING VS THE CROWD

 In politically charged moments (PP II)

o CPs were also credited with radio etc. for calling forth the crowd and organizing the flow
of its desire
 Resource for the reformation of social order
o CROWD
 Medium of communication
 Converged with and submerged those emanating from cps
 FLOR C.
o Urge to relate experiences and hear others as well
o Transmitted a text specific to her life not just passed thru her
o Authority?
o Anonymous still
 Protest marchers in the 70s and the 80s
o Buddy system
 Guards vs infiltration from 5th columnists and harassment of military and police
o LOSS OF PLACE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE ABSORPTION INTO THE MOVEMENT OF THE
CROWD
o In a community and outside of any
o Excitement
 o Takes out camera
 Medium for registering experience
o Statement nawala yung I – NAGING IT
o AGENCY
 Scenes made up juxtaposition of various social classes
 Contrasts w/out domination
 CAM:CROWD
o Reiterates workings of the crowd
o Becoming the camera
 Up close and holds differences in sharp juxta
o FLOR C. = takes on telecomm power of the crowd
o Unlike CPs = political usefulness requires legit msg from authority
 POWER OF CROWD DRAWS FROM ITSELF
 MIDDLE CLASS RALLYIST SA LOOB NG GALE PROTESTING RATHER THAN SHOPPING
 GALE
o Mall merges with the streets
o Intensification of the sense of displacement basis for fleeting a mobile pleasure
o DISPLACEMENT
 Occasion for anxiety and fear
 FLOR Cs statement
o Realization of the saving power of the crowd
 Ang sikip di makahinga = parang trap
 It moves on its own accord
 Collective patience and giving way. Ruled crowd
 Forbearance forgiveness and forgetting
 Disciplined and with respect = damayan
 Not establishing hierarchies
 Became of mutual restraint and deference that set SOCIAL
DISTINCTION aside

CROWDING

 Gives rise to the experience of forbearance

 General economy of deference
 Does not insult the conservation of SOCIAL IDENTITY
 A kind of saving
o Experience of freedom
 Principle of freedom and incalculable pleasure
 Sense of collectivity resides

CONSTRAINT

 Gives way to unexpected clearing

 Opens the way for others to be free
EMANCIPATION

 Relies on dense gathering held in patient anticipation of a clearing and release

CROWD – calls for and is called by JUSTICE held by the promise of its arrival

JUSTICE

 Not force acting to avenge

 Violence = more injustice

NON-VIOLENT NATURE

 Instead of gathering on the basis of JUSTICE as a promise (like freedom)>> is always yet to be
realized and always yet to come
 Poised to arrive from the future
 Unceasing uncertainty of its arrival that constitutes the present
 JUSTICE
o Comes by not fully coming in ways unexpected
o Free from any particular socio-technical determination
o As promise (message of Flor C.)
o Promissary nature
 Event whose eventfulness occurs in advance of and beyond any given political
and social order
 Evading reification and exceeding institutional consolidation which entails a
telecommunication of sorts


JACQUES DERRIDA

 Messianic that comes with neither a messianism nor a messiah

 Opening up to the future or to the coming of the other as the advent of justice
 It follows no determinable revelation
 Missianicity stripped of everything, faith without dogma

POST-SCRIPT

 3 mos. After ppII  na-aresto si Erap charges on graft and corruption

 Urban poor
o Infuriated to see the sight of erap being treated as a regular criminal
o Gumawa rin ng “POOR PEOPLE POWER”
 Inc, el shaddai etc
 Truck loads by eraps political operatives from the slums and near by provinces
 May bayad at pagkain alcohol
 Armed with slingshots home made guns knives steel pipes
 Described as unruly and uncivilized
 Hired thugs
 Pero meron naman talagang legit na may sinasabi/complaints
 Ignored by elite politicians the catholic church hierarchy middle-class
left-dominated groups and NGOs
 Tinitingala nila si Estrada
o Binibigyan sila ng pag-asa
o Minanipula sa pagbribe “lagay”
o Unenlightened
 Pero desrve nila ng compassion from MIDDLE CLASS
o Duty na i-uplift to the latter’s level of political and moral
consciousness
o Middle class: tech savvy and politically sophisticated, PPP:
retrograde and reactionary
 GTxt
o Democratization accountability and civil society
 Tsinelas crowd
o Fixated sila sa mga idol
o Barely articulate incapable of formulating their sentiments
except in terms of seeking vengeance on those they deemed
responsible for victimizing their leader
 “voicelessness of the urban poor”
 Middle class accounts
 Lack of interest in actually hearing much less recording any distinctive
voices and in effect redoubled the seeming inarticulateness of the
masses
 VOICELESS
 Could riot on the streets
 MAY 1
o Nanggulo
o May slogans
o Sinulat sa news = binigyan ng chance marinig
o "Nandito no komi, mo/opit no ong togumpoy," (We're here, our
victory is close at hand!) and "Potolsikin si Gloria! Ibolik si Erop!
Nandyan na komi! Maghanda na kayo!" (Get rid of Gloria!
Return Erap! We are coming! Get reodvl}."
 Fueled by the desire to give back to Gloria what they
think she’s given to them
 Unseat Gloria
 We are here, our victory is close at hand;" "We are
coming, you better be ready!"
 “WE”
o Dumating na instead of it continuing to
come
o Certain of its arrival = be ready
 o Having arrived, they will settle their
debts, collect what is owed to them and
thereby put an end to their - the
crowd's and the listeners' - waiting.
 Crowd PPP = comes as a messianic specter delivered by
resentments whose satisfaction can no longer be
deferred
 Iniiwasan ang stance of forbearance
 Crowd demanded recognition without delat
 Middle class = not ready to hear them, unprepared
 masses became suddenly visible in a country where the
poor are often seen by the middle class to be unsightly,
spoken about and down to because deemed incapable
of speaking up for themselves
 apocalyptic agency
 did not gain a “voice” that corresponded to a new social
identity
 Unprepared to hear the crowd's demand that they be
prepared, the middle class could only regard it as
monstrous. Hence the bourgeois calls for the
conversion of the masses and their containment by
means of "pity," "compassion" and some combination
of social programs and eduk reform
 Relegated to the memory of injustices left unanswered
fueling the promise of revenge and feeding the
anticipation of more uprisings into the future