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So cheap that nobody gives a second thought about forwarding the latest received messages sent by friends or whoever. It could be a joke, whether funny or corny. It could also be a rumor that one finds so interesting, so juicy. In times of political scandal, the text message becomes all too convenient, never mind if the public in the process gives more profits to Romy Neri’s "favorite" oligarchs.

There’s that text message that enumerates the so-called "broadband hits." It betrays the age of the guy who thought of it. Top of his list is "Two Million Thanks to You" by "A. Balos". God! TV was still black and white and I was struggling through early adolescence when Pilita Corrales gyrated her hips while warbling the song "A million thanks to you – my love".

But there are two rumors passed through text that I took particular interest in. One was about that meeting where Annabelle’s Tony Abaya brought Jun Lozada to lawyer Felicitas Aquino-Arroyo. It all started when the Joker twitted witness Lozada at a Senate hearing about his seeming bias towards meeting with opposition senators. Lozada, to prove that he was not singling out an opposition audience, mentioned his meeting with the senator’s better half at his own manse in exclusive Dasmariñas upon rich Makati. Joker immediately went ballistic, and cut off a terrified Lozada before he could speak any further. Had he allowed Lozada to simply narrate his story, he would have found out that there was no cause for worry. It was an innocent visit, long before Jun crashed into the headlines.

Because of Joker’s belligerence, the text mill started to grind. Ano ang tinatago ni Joker? Two days later, I received text messages from all over saying that Joker’s better half, Fely, was lawyering for ports magnate Ricky Razon. I have received perhaps three dozen such forwarded messages, from friends as far as Davao and Cebu, Iloilo and Dagupan.

Now let’s be true. It isn’t true. Lawyer Fely, who is not exactly a fan of the Boss Woman who has her husband Joker in thrall, actually dislikes his Boss Woman. Or so a friend who is her friend tells me. Her explanation should be taken at truthful face value. She told Jun Lozada that he was not being summoned to the Senate (at the time) and so he is under no compulsion to testify. counsel any lawyer would give anybody in similar situation. But Joker was too protective, and his bellicose reaction got people wondering what indeed Jun and Fely and Annabelle’s Tony (I have to keep mentioning Annabelle, because another Tony, who I consider a friend insists on the distinction.) talked about in Joker’s mansion.

And Jun Lozada, whose truth Joker and Miriam tried to discombobulate in Senate hearings, stuck, as always, just true to the truth behind his encounter with Fely Aquino-Arroyo. Joker and his big mouth did harm instead of good to his beloved Fely.

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And then there’s this text message about Vice President Noli de Castro allegedly buying a mansion in Joker’s neighborhood. The text message comes complete with an address. The amount is mind-boggling – 200 million (Abalos’ favorite number, just as borjer is his favorite sandwich) pesos. The message comes complete with a love angle, with one Lucille Ortille.

The name Ortille rang a bell. Three years or so ago, an Asec Lucy Ortille bumped the car of a friend near the Angeles tollgate of the NLEX. There was a quarrel which terrified my friend’s young kids, because out of the blue, this lady asec’s husband came swooping down with bodyguards upon the helpless family. I wrote about the belligerence and arrogance of this woman asec.

Later, some friends from the PMS sent word to vouch for this Ortille woman. And then, no less than a cabinet secretary with whom I am chummy-chummy because he is such a nice guy who doesn’t feel bad even if you write nasty things about his activities in the coven of evil, came to her succor. "Manong, mabait ‘yang si Lucy," he vowed.

Anyway, the same name is now being used to smear Kabayan Noli. What was my "original" source of the message? Someone who got the text message passed to him by someone close to Malacañang.

After calling my "usual" contacts, I found out that: One, there was indeed a sale and a purchase of property in exclusive Dasmariñas, but not for such an astronomical amount; two, the dramatis personae certainly do not include Kabayan Noli, who was neither buyer nor love-struck sugar daddy.

It’s somebody else who is indeed extra-close to the Boss Woman. As for Madame Lucille Ortille and how she got into the picture, just ask people at the Housing apparatus of this mis-government, where Kabayan Noli merely inherited the same agency heads, the same pompous asecs and undersecs from his predecessor, the chummy-chummy guy.

So where did the text message originate? My guess is from the bowels of the stinking palace beside the stinking river. Their way of warning people about the man who could be the next president, so that the "perfumed set" in civil society would say, "tiisin na lang natin si (evil)".

Will it work? Only if we as a people have lost all traces of love of country could anybody continue to countenance the reign of lying, cheating and stealing (and add murdering, as friend Conrad de Quiros appends) as well as the lesser charge of kidnapping (as friend Lito Atienza denies).

In a forum last week, after lawyer Frank Chavez cried for Gloria and Noli to resign, my good friend Minguita, the ophthalmologist who loves this country with a passion, stood up to say, "So what if it’s Noli? I’d prefer even a dog to the present occupant of Malacañang".

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Over the past week likewise, I kept getting e-mail from various sources, appealing to PNP chief Sonny Razon’s sense of the principles of Freemasonry, to which fraternal order he belongs. I will just include Narciso Limsiaco Ner’s message in this column:

"Masonry is an institution having for its foundation the practice of SOCIAL and MORAL virtues and that one of its principal tenets is TRUTH. The FIRST lesson taught to Masons is TO BE GOOD AND TRUE. That TRUTH is a DIVINE ATTRIBUTE and the foundation of every virtue."

I am not a Mason. In fact, other than membership in the Rotary Club, I am what UP students would call a "barbarian." I never joined, nor ever found myself interested in joining a fraternity of whatever kind. When I was already a young professional, a cousin enticed me to join Freemasonry. I attended one or two meetings, just to see if I would fit. When I was asked to attend some preliminary screening prior to possible acceptance, I decided going on a date was more pressing. I guess I’m too much of a liberal thinker to want to join any organization where one has to conform to rigid rules and set traditions.

But I have nothing against those who join fraternities, least of all Freemasonry. Some of the best and brightest minds with truly noble purpose in the long history of mankind, embraced the tenets of Freemasonry.

But truth as a "divine attribute" as my Davaoeño correspondent Narciso Ner states is indeed the "foundation of every virtue." You need not be a Mason to know that. My mother taught me that. The first real belt-lashing I got from my mom, when I was five and a half years old, was because I lied. My Dominican teachers taught me that lying was bad. A similar mother (also half-Chinese) and similar Dominican preachers, must have taught Rodolfo Noel Lozada Jr. that lying is bad.

Minguita Padilla was taught by the same Assumption nuns that taught one Gloria Macaraeg Macapagal. Surely they were taught that lying is bad.

When you conspire for unlimited power, and then cheat so you could retain the fruit of your conspiracy, and keep stealing because keeping the fruit of conspiracy and cheating can be very expensive, and you have to lie and lie and lie to cover up for a symphony of wrongdoings, may be a Romulo Neri is right to describe you as "evil".