Thumbs up for speed texters

It was probably one of those Sundays for Vanina Htun: uneventful, languid, static. Her trip to the Shangri-La Edsa mall would have been an ordinary sojourn, too, but upon going through The Shang’s revolving door and the first floor escalator, an idea struck her. She was not going to lose anything anyway, so she queued, filled out a registration form, donned a black Nokia t-shirt, and joined tens of other contestants in the Second Nokia Speed Text Challenge.

She was up against several participants who had had much practice since Dec. 6. The Speed Text Challenge was slated for three consecutive days at The Shang. Elimination rounds were held on Friday and Saturday, and the top participants automatically qualified for the Sunday quarterfinals. One of the top performers of the past two days was Patrick Pastor, who easily creamed his opponents in record pace. But in the meantime, Htun had to face walk-in contestants like her.

If texting were to be allowed as an Olympic event, Filipinos would definitely win medals. As the Nokia Speed Text Challenge has shown, sentences like "Who are the people in your phone book and how often do you text them?" could be keyed in and sent to an assigned number in just 20-plus seconds. The contest, mind you, prohibited the use of the built-in dictionary function. Participants were also barred from using two hands when texting. And once competitors finished inputting the sentence, they would have to wait for the "Message Sent" alert to flash on their phone screens before they could put down the phone on the podium and press the buzzer. To do all these in just over 20 – or maybe even 30 – seconds was not a walk in the park. This writer tried to do it during the event’s media round. Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Pam Pastor won by a few seconds over her nearest rival. This writer was fourth – 10 seconds behind and missing a period in www.club.nokia.com.ph.

After a few more intervals and a celebrity match (participants included broadcast journalist Arnold Clavio and TV and movie personalities Lyn Ching, Ryan Agoncillo, Lucky Manzano, Antonette Taus and Suzi Entrata-Abrera who, by the way, won the round), Htun stepped into one of the podiums as one of the semifinalists. She had breezed through the eliminations and the quarterfinals. Of course, the sentences that contestants had to text during those rounds were like the 100-meter dash: short and fast. But now, on the screen, was a 400-meter hurdle: the sentence was heavily littered with commas and other punctuation marks plus a few Nokia model numbers. One could see each contestant’s thumb hurriedly flitting all over the keypad when the signal to text was given. It was like witnessing well-trained miniature athletes jumping over hurdles of commas, periods, exclamation points and numbers on the track. Htun, however, was first to reach the line. She joined Patrick Pastor, Marisol Faelmar and Katherina Tardecilla in the Metro Manila final round. Meanwhile, waiting in the wings were Visayas finalist Laarni Mae Verdan of Cebu and Mindanao finalist Aisa Miranda of Davao.

If the semifinals were like a 400-meter hurdles event, the Manila finals were a gruelling steeplechase. On the screen was a five-line stomper: "Are you fast enough to be the fastest texter in the country? If you are, then you could win P200,000 in the Nokia Speed Text Challenge!" All the three Manila finalists probably thought they had the fastest thumbs in the country now that the P200,000 bounty was just a round away, but only one of them would advance to the Speed Text Challenge national finals.

After a few tense minutes, the results were put on the screen: Pastor first, and Htun, second. Faelmar and Tardecilla received P5,000 each and a bag of Nokia goodies. Just as expected, Pastor went on to win the Speed Text national finals with much ease. In fact, while the Visayas and Mindanao finalists were intensely keying in the sentence on the screen, Pastor was doing a little merry jig – to the tune of Las Ketchup – while texting with his left hand.

Htun, on the other hand, got only P10,000, a Nokia knapsack and other goodies. But for a walk-in contestant like her, who probably went to the mall to escape another lazy weekend, it was not such a bad, bloody Sunday.