Phonatics

An email from HR department has sent a commotion in the office yesterday morning. Everyone momentarily stopped their clocks like clan of vultures who stumbled upon a dying prey and they just needed to feast. The usual morning rush characterized by restless keyboards' taps and printers' snores was for a moment silenced by our own shrieks and screams. The object of instant attention: mobile fone! You heard it right, cellfones! Just as we Filipinos love cellfones more than anything else, the reaction came not suprisingly perhaps as we still lead the whole world in text messaging and probably, in taking out mobile fones as icon in the social class (everybody has cellfone in the Phillipines).

Not to be missed though, is why everybody seemed to be interested in the email about a mobile fone. Well, we know for one mobile phones are expensive stuff so when opportunities come along and it offers free iPhones4 at practically slashed out postpaid installment plan, everybody, Filipinos in the office including yours truly, will surely be the first to line up the queu. And that's what the email is all about. DU's iPhones4 corporate promotion to our company employees is really something enticing. Take a look:

To better explain the terms of the subscription, I will restate all the amounts in PHP at current exchange rate of AED 1 = PHP 11.80. If you take the iPhone4 16 GB unit, then you will pay an upfront fee of PHP 4,720 and monthly fixed payment of PHP 2,360 within a 12 month period. The consumable include 125 minutes of UAE calls, 125 minutes of international calls, 125 text messages anywhere and IDD rate of PHP 19.47 per minute call in case you exceed the package's included minutes. The only difference with the iPhone4 32 GB is that the upfront fee is PHP 7,080. Summing it up, the mobile unit actually comes for free and you'll just end up paying for the calls and text messages.

Majority in the department has signalled their intention to sign up for the promotion, including me. A blatant display of our undying fascination to arm ourselves with the latest gadget even it means sacrificing on other things. Talk about status symbol. Are OFWs really have to have the "latest" simply because we are "OFWs" and everbody back home expects us to be rich, filthy rich. Maybe not. The plan includes precious call minutes which when avail outside would already cost the same as the plan's monthly fixed fee. More call minutes means more time to contact our loved ones and be able to say what we can't say through mail, FB or YM.

Owning the latest cellfone model is a small price to pay vis a vis the sacrifices of an OFW. Beyond the show off and practicality, it deals more with having the uniterrupted means to stay connected with our families in the Philippines. It reflects our unflattering choice to compromise so that we'll have that direct channel to socialize with friends both old and new, be aware of the latest news back home and simply to feel good about ourselves knowing part of hard toil is just right in the palms of our hands.