The Philippines’ #sentisabado

More and more Filipinos are joining Twitter but we have yet to put a distinctive Filipino mark on it, as distinct perhaps as the personalization many Filipinos once did on Friendster and what we do to our phones with themes, icons and ringtones.

The leading Twitter users in Manila have gone on to meet offline, with TweetUps (Twitter Meetups) sometimes gathering around a hundred Tweeps. Many of them, the best and brightest geeks, techies and new media denizens.

Online, there is #FollowFriday, a global phenomenon that originated elsewhere. Filipinos continue to do it, as a way of rewarding and spreading information about Tweeps we faithfully follow or admire.

Several times in the past year, Tweeps in the Philippines brought our joys and tears to Twitter: “Corazon Aquino” in her death, #blogwatch during the campaign, #juanvote during the elections, “Noynoy Aquino” and “Jojo Binay” when they won. Also, who could forget “Ondoy” when we tweeted for relief goods and volunteers?

Now, we have #sentisabado, a distinctly Filipino and hopefully soon-to-be “regular” Twitter event which started on August 28 and reached fever pitch on September 4. It helped that Filipinos, including netizens, had been pining for the positive in the aftermath of the August 23 hostage crisis and how our government responded to it. Perhaps last Aug. 28 and Sept. 4, we could not find anything more positive than looking back to when we were kids and enjoying the memories of years past.

It has been a few days since #sentisabado but many tweeps continue to use it and engage their Twitter followers. This could be a good sign that #sentisabado is here to stay as Filipinos have found something to unite around using this stellar platform called Twitter for quick, short bursts of wisdom, humor and musings.

Thanks to the creativity of Filipinos, I am confident that #sentisabado would only be the first Twitter phenomenon. Twitteria should expect more hashtags and Twitter trends from the Philippines in the future.

Call it anything – a respite, a momentary escape. But whether #sentisabado would lull netizens into forgeting about what we must do with the ugly present are sorely mistaken. If we proved anything, what tweeps did last Aug. 28 and Sept. 4 was that we could unite online and have a long and fresh memory of the past.

At the core of it, #sentisabado is a collective exercise of remembering. In remembering, we try not to forget. In trying not to forget, we share a collective memory and we prep ourselves to act so the best of the past, the best of now, and what we intend to make the best of the future, would come together — and ultimately make #sentisabado as fun 10, 20 or 30 years from now.

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