June 20, 2005
Filipinos clamour for scandalous mobile ringtone
Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo may be struggling with record-low popularity, but a simple two-word greeting attributed to her has shot to the top of the charts in the cellphone-mad country, reports The Khaleej Times.
"A Web site offering a mobile phone ringtone featuring the words “Hello Garci” briefly crashed late last week as thousands of Filipinos clamoured to download it.
Text message consumer rights group TXTpower said its site (www.txtpower.org) had been overwhelmed by demand for the clip taken from a recording at the centre of allegations Arroyo tried to fix the result of last year's election.
Banague said the site had received more than 72,000 hits since Friday, when it started offering the ringtone. It was still recording about 170 downloads an hour.
The country's 37 million mobile users, more than a third of the population, send an average of seven messages every day.
Opponents of Arroyo's predecessor, former movie star Joseph Estrada, famously used text messaging to help organise a ”People Power” revolt that drove him from office in 2001.
Related:
-- Ringtones express widespread disgust over (Ms Arroyo's) obvious poll fraud
-- Wiretapped Voice Latest Ringtone Craze
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