This is a commentary. (In other words, ramblings/rants/musings)
I never thought it was necessary to create a Twitter account until recently when I decided that monitoring the horrendous traffic situation in EDSA every single workday was a burning need that I just couldn’t shrug off (read: commuter problems). Facebook was already too much to handle for me but I figured it’s a bit slow when it comes to real-time updates especially when it rains really hard, which happens, like, half of the year in the Philippines.
So anyway, speaking of rains, my first ever legit ‘introduction’ to Twitterverse was when Yolanda island-hopped her way through my beloved country. It was a devastating catastrophe (Yolanda deserves some redundancy here, folks) and the days that followed certainly felt like a nightmare for our fellow Filipinos living in the hardest-hit areas in Central Visayas.
If there’s anything that I observed from reading thousands of #YolandaPH tweets on the social media site aside from the fact that Twitter is, indeed, a powerful tool, it’s this thing about some Filipinos being emotional. Not emotional ‘emotional’ as in mega-crayola-sa-isang-tabi kind of emotional. No, scratch that assumption of us being too emotional – it’s actually more like Yolanda bringing out the best and worst social media behaviors in Filipino netizens (besides creating a venue where commoners with good hearts shone and where selfish politicians still found time for ugly word wars while the whole world was watching).
And yes, I had so much time in my hands to actually take screenshots of tweets that I know will surely make one feel all sorts of things, like:
1. This guy who was either ignorant or apathetic.
I never thought it was necessary to create a Twitter account until recently when I decided that monitoring the horrendous traffic situation in EDSA every single workday was a burning need that I just couldn’t shrug off (read: commuter problems). Facebook was already too much to handle for me but I figured it’s a bit slow when it comes to real-time updates especially when it rains really hard, which happens, like, half of the year in the Philippines.
So anyway, speaking of rains, my first ever legit ‘introduction’ to Twitterverse was when Yolanda island-hopped her way through my beloved country. It was a devastating catastrophe (Yolanda deserves some redundancy here, folks) and the days that followed certainly felt like a nightmare for our fellow Filipinos living in the hardest-hit areas in Central Visayas.
If there’s anything that I observed from reading thousands of #YolandaPH tweets on the social media site aside from the fact that Twitter is, indeed, a powerful tool, it’s this thing about some Filipinos being emotional. Not emotional ‘emotional’ as in mega-crayola-sa-isang-tabi kind of emotional. No, scratch that assumption of us being too emotional – it’s actually more like Yolanda bringing out the best and worst social media behaviors in Filipino netizens (besides creating a venue where commoners with good hearts shone and where selfish politicians still found time for ugly word wars while the whole world was watching).
And yes, I had so much time in my hands to actually take screenshots of tweets that I know will surely make one feel all sorts of things, like:
1. This guy who was either ignorant or apathetic.
Coke and this guy were either not aware that Yolanda just made her first landfall in Guian or just did not care enough to actually post about the nearing Coke Caravan in Davao or did not foresee the extent of damages that a super typhoon could bring (who could foresee things, anyway?).
Me during Yolanda: WTF?! May super bagyo na’t lahat caravan pa rin iniintindi ninyo?! Be sensitive naman!
In retrospect: Life goes on. Businesses need to operate as usual.
But: The timing was a bit off, IMO.
Me during Yolanda: WTF?! May super bagyo na’t lahat caravan pa rin iniintindi ninyo?! Be sensitive naman!
In retrospect: Life goes on. Businesses need to operate as usual.
But: The timing was a bit off, IMO.