Filipino protesters use planking to send a message
October 10, 2011
Planking, the odd yet addictive game, went viral on the internet a few months back, and people in the Philippines used the new craze to facilitate a protest. The act itself involves laying face-down on any surface, the more unusual the better, to imitate a flat, stiff board, or a plank.
The Washington Post reports that a few weeks ago, a small group of protesters went about planking in the middle of a busy traffic circle in downtown Manila. The group was taking part in a nationwide protest over high oil prices, and government officials responded rather ferociously. Quezan City representative Winston Castelo immediately proposed a new bill called the Anti-Planking Act of 2011, which was quickly made the butt of jokes from both news publications like the New York Times and social networking sites, such as Twitter.
"The Anti-Planking Act of 2011 is even more absurd than the act of planking itself," one user tweeted when the act became a top trending topic a few days after the bill was announced, according to the news source.
People can make calls to the Philippines using international phone cards to talk to their friends about planking and all the latest internet prank crazes - owling, batmanning, leisure diving and horse-manning.