in case of emergency.

for the record, i strongly dislike chain letters/emails/messages. jokes are fine, even though getting the same jokes repeatedly makes the joke more annoying than amusing. but for other chain messages, especially those with dubious contents, i sometimes reply to the sender a rebuttal (the last one was to answer the message about the US experiencing a 36-hour day).

i've had on several instances received messages or some across message board entries about the ICE campaign. ICE stands for "in case of emergency" and the campaign suggests that our emergency contact numbers stored in our mobile phone be labelled ICE for easy identification. the idea is: should we be in an emergency situation where we won't be capable of calling our relatives, rescuers (for example) could identify which numbers to contact in our behalf because of the ICE labels in our phone books.

not a bad idea in itself, but i wondered: wouldn't an acronym like ICE confuse people who might be using our phones as well? unless emergency personels are instructed to look for numbers labelled "ICE" for emergency numbers, how would they know which contact is which?

i figured, why not label a contact for emergency "FOR EMERGENCY" instead? that would be more sensible, methinks -- it's clear and unambiguous. for myself, the mother's phone number is labelled "MOTHER" in my phonebook; hopefully that won't confuse anyone browsing through my phone who wanted to call the mother in case i was found naked and unconscious in the middle of EDSA.

sure, the ICE campaign is laudable for raising awareness on the importance of ensuring that our relatives could easily be contacted in case something untoward happens to us. but a fancy acronym like "ICE" has the danger of generating further confusion, especially if not everyone is aware there is such an acronym.

as for the ICE campaign emails, i appreciate the campaign but please don't forward it to me. it'll go straight to my trash folder.