Of course, having a cellphone doesn’t make Alex unique; what does is what type of cellphone.

You see, unlike the millions of Filipinos who have one, two, even three phones, all of which must be the newest model on the market (black or otherwise!), Alex is all alone by himself in being able to constantly resist the temptation to drop a handful of pesos for the latest model, only to drop the latest for an even later latest a few months in the future. In short, on Alex, the millions of pesos – no, make that hundreds of millions of pesos spent yearly by such cellphone makers as Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony-Ericsson, Philips (to name a few) just don’t work. You see, to this day, Alex is welded to his own Nokia, whose model number I have long forgotten!

I once espied Alex texting someone on his phone, and I called his attention to it. "Alex", I told him, "your cellphone is a disgrace to the Coca-Cola Tigers organization that you represent. Either you buy yourself a more recent version, or you will be traded out of the team!". He laughed, as I did, and in his laughter I knew that Alex was saying to himself that JB must be joking.

Two days ago, out of the blue, I received a text from him: "N3570. That’s the model" which he followed by a smiley emoticon. Then he added: "But it still works perfect three years running."

I replied that Nokia should take him as a product endorser – as one who will attest to the quality of their phones especially in the wake of the exploding batteries issue – and I even suggested a campaign theme: "No Shame." Why No Shame? Because unlike most cellphone users, Alex isn’t ashamed to be using such a Jurassic unit long after its designer had been cremated (I am just making this up). I even added the text for the "No Shame" campaign:

"Alex Cabagnot is proud of his Nokia N3570 which, he attests. ‘still works perfectly after 3 years’.

While millions of Nokia users worldwide always hunger for the more advanced phones, this basketball star from Manila and Los Angeles is proof that whether one uses its latest units, or holds on to its older versions like the N3570 as Alex does, connecting people is what Nokia phones do best."

I sent this in a text to him, and he gleefully responded: "I love it….can we sell the idea to Nokia?"

Fat chance, Alex. But can you trade up?

The "No Shame" campaign for Alex was something I thought about in jest; unfortunately within public service a "No Shame" campaign has long been in full swing, with its roots as deep as the earth’s core.

That can be the only conclusion to be drawn from the latest embarrassing caper, the "did he or did he not" broker the ZTE broadband deal which is drawing Comelec chairman Benjamin Abalos deeper and deeper into the muck.

At first, if we recall, the Comelec chair said that he knew nothing about the ZTE deal. In an act of complete and utter humility Abalos even said he could not have influenced such a deal, for who was he in the greater scheme of things? He also made comments about his sex life, but in the interest of taste we will not replay his words here.

Later on he admitted that yes, he played golf with the ZTE bosses while in Manila, but he did so as president of the Wack-Wack Golf Club. Was it wrong to play golf with them?

Then he wiggled further, and said that actually all he was doing was talking to the ZTE guys as a private citizen to help his daughter who was into the import-export business. (Deeper, deeper he sinks). Was it wrong to put in a good word for your daughter? – I was actually afraid he would ask this.

Then he denied introducing ZTE to anyone, although he did admit later on that on one occasion Finance Secretary Margarito Teves was there, but no, the ZTE deal was not discussed, only the idea of investing in Mindanao. I held my breath to see what Teves would say – and then I heard the sound of someone sinking even deeper into quicksand when Teves admitted that he met the ZTE bosses in a meeting set up by Abalos, and yes, all they talked about was the broadband deal.

I don’t know how all of these will end, but think about this: it is alleged that for every government project, at least 20 percent of the funds allocated for the same ends up in the pockets of various people. That’s an "at least"; remember how Rep. Way Kurat Zamora spoke of different sizes of "buwayas", from geckos to king crocodiles, the latter biting off much higher than 50 percent of the project cost?

Now think about this: if this ZTE broadband project happens to be one of those regular schemes wherein someone, somewhere will make money; and if the bare minimum commission in this scheme will be 20 percent; and if the project cost is US$ 300 million – which, by the way, will be a loan that you and I will have to pay for the rest of our lives! – then a "mere" US$ 60 million will be someone’s commission.

In peso terms, that’s P3 billion. Wow. Enough to buy Alex Cabagnot a new cellphone every day of the rest of his life – with one each, too, for his parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, team mates, team manager…..

No shame.