It's a given that the social class structure in this part of the globe is an inverted pyramid, the top end of the spectrum representing 50% of the population belonging to the low income class. But really, if looking at the sleek gadgets of fellow commuters any indication of the country's financial status, then you just might get the wrong impression.
Ironically, while half of the nation is saying "Palimos po," a survey by tech giant, Microsoft, shows that Filipino families have an average of 10 gadgets per household, making us the most tech savvy country in Asia. Almost 70% of respondents said they taught family members how to communicate through the Internet while 46% said they would spend between 15 to 30 minutes communicating with their loved ones and 23 percent said they spend an hour.
The stats could be due to the staggering rate of human resource we deploy abroad that rake in mega-bucks from abroad as well as our penchant for chatting, which is evident in the avid usage of "call and text" deals with telecom companies, swelling consumption of talk-time and our prevalence in social network sites to the point of being hailed as the "social networking capital of the world" by Universal McCann.
So, does it mean we are living in false pretenses? Heck no! We're just tech geniuses in disguise.