Bugged Cellphones and the Dobbie Beams Sex Scandal

By Alex P. Vidal

NOW that it has been confirmed there is a gadget that can bug even a personal cellular phone, individuals who do monkey business via cellular phones must be extra careful in giving out their numbers to strangers or acquaintances that are not familiar to them or those that cannot be trusted.
The Gary or Garci scandal is an eye opener. If the highest official of the country can be wire-tapped, what more of ordinary persons? For sure, a lot of lessons have been learned from the “Hello Garci” incident by both Pres. Arroyo and Election Commissioner Virgilio Garcillano (assuming that they are the phone pals in the tape) and other cellular phone and land line users in private and government offices.
In this age of technology, anything can be recorded or taped—video and audio—and can be used as instrument to blackmail any person. Why, even cellular phones nowadays are equipped with video recording and electronic mail gadgets!
Wire-tapping equipment is not anymore an enigma to Filipinos. The bugging of communication lines had been a common practice during the cold war between the United States and Soviet Union in the 1960’s and early 1970’s.
And who can forget the downfall of President Richard Nixon because of the Watergate scandal? It can be said that wire-tapping was born starting when Alexander Bell invented the telephone.
The extra-marital liaison between American film nymphet Dobbie Beams and Pres. Ferdinand Marcos was exposed to the public after somebody had surreptitiously (many suspected it was Mrs. Imelda Marcos) placed a tape recorder under the bed while the couple was having sex.
The taped voice clip of Beams groaning and moaning, if played repeatedly in rallies and street demonstrations like what is happening in the Garci tape today, could have been enough to yank out Apo Ferdie from Malacañang, if there was not a Martial Law at that time.
A pretty TV hostess from Bacolod City had to flee from the “City of Smile” after VCDs circulated showing her and a male partner doing oral sex in what was supposed to be a private activity, and so on and so forth.
By the time we finish reading this item, somebody else’s cellphone might be the next victim of wire-tapping. Be careful. /MP