Printer Friendly |  Email Article |  Purchase for Reprint

(Page 1 of 3)

Top News Rice: There Was No Silver Bullet to Avert Attacks Rice Says Iraq Was Early Suspect After 9/11 Fierce Fighting Rages in Iraq, Foreigners Kidnapped MORE

MANILA (Reuters) - Maricar Quiambao's fingers hover over the computer keyboard as she prepares to compose a message to Filipino voters.

"Don't vote for FPJ," she says, laughing mischievously at her slight against movie star turned presidential front-runner Fernando Poe Jr.

Quiambao, a campaign adviser to politicians linked to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is testing software to send political text messages to thousands of mobile telephones simultaneously.

By the time Filipinos go to the polls on May 10 to elect a president and 17,000 other officials across the archipelago, many mobile phone owners will have received hundreds of messages aimed at influencing their decisions at the polling booth.

Most will be harmless jokes knocking down a candidate, but others will be potentially damaging rumors that could swing the vote in a close race.

"It's now an effective conveyor of black propaganda," says Senator Edgardo Angara, president of Poe's LDP party, the main opposition bloc.

While U.S. Democratic Party candidate Howard Dean boasted of harnessing the Internet to rally grass-roots supporters in his failed bid for president, his nation's poor former colony is employing digital communications to far greater effect.

The Philippines is where opponents of Arroyo's predecessor, former movie star Joseph Estrada, famously used the short message service (SMS) of mobile phones to help organize a "People Power" revolt that drove him from the president's office.

SMS CAPITAL

Arroyo, who rose from vice president in the January 2001 uprising, now faces voters for the first time as leader.

With polls showing her and Poe running neck and neck, neither candidate -- nor others running for posts such as senator and mayor -- can afford to ignore the influence of text messaging.    Continued ...

1 | 2 | 3   Next

More Technology RealNetworks Talks to PC Makers After EU Ruling Eyeing Competitors, Samsung Elec Unveils New TVs Japan's Trade Watchdog Raids Intel Office Dell to Load Oracle Software on Computer Servers BT Enters Software Business to Protect Film, Music MORE