Another great topic of discussion here.
Many of the locals are critical and or suspicious of president Arroyo. These people tend to be older working class people that see her as a corrupt elitest. This older group has heard all the hype from Arroyo about moving forward as a country and seen this society stagnate or regress.
Foreign investment is increasing sharply. More filipinos have jobs. My guess is (that means I havent seen any numbers or paid close enough attention to say with confidence ) that the fast food jobs and the imported (junk) shops are giving people here the most jobs.
The more people that have jobs, the less critical they are of what the president does. This seems to be a universal human truth.
Back to your original question, no I havent heard the tape. There have been a few Filipino news programs that have talked about it though. Most of these news shows are in Tagolog so clearly most of the footage is lost on me.
If I talk politics with someone here I ask about where they stand on Arroyo and the corruption case. The educated young working people could care no less about it and see it as total folly. These people are building condos, selling computers to a growing market or own some type of money making business. They're too busy to care.
Those not directly involved with the "new economy" or the increase in the standard of living are most critical.
I'm not in a position to be critical of the president here or even have any desire to dig into the details of the "proof" tape but the case seems weak, irrelevant and only an issue with people that need to crucify someone for their lack of progress here.
Sounds much like another little situation that we're all a bit more familiar with.
As for the ringtones.......
Have not heard the proof tape ringtone but the cell phones are so common here that it's beyond annoying.
The younger people dont talk on their phones as much as they text message one another. Now the new thing is sending photos over the phone. There's something that can keep my attention for more than 20 seconds.
You see people holding cell phones in front of them with both hands, playing games and texting at every turn here.
Slang: Hey!
it's a cell phone...talk on the God damned thing already! Kids today.
I butchered that reply but hope you got something out of it.
My back and ass are killing me from this kindergarden chair.
