Planking: It’s time to move on

Guys. We get it. Planking is the protest action du jour, especially after Quezon City Representative Winston Castelo proposed a controversial and draconian law to penalize planking on the streets during protest rallies.

As predicted, though, Filipinos took an Internet meme, hyped it up, then beat that dead horse until it could not possibly get any more dead without turning into a zombie metaphorical horse that is then shot in the head.

Sometimes, as with this group of fisher folk protesting the creation of the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone (APECO), Filipinos tend to take things overboard.

Did you see what we did there? Overboard? Eh? Eh? (bulatlat.com)

I hate to be a spoilsport, two dudes in the water, but planking in the sea is called floating. Possibly, snorkeling. That doesn’t even follow the concept of the meme, strictly speaking.  Planking is supposed to be done in places where people are not likely to be lying face down and stiff as a board. What those guys are doing is called sunbathing in most places.

Not to belittle the gripes of Aurora residents against APECO or anything. Those guys have legitimate complaints. They say construction of APECO has destroyed mangroves where the fish they catch live, and has caused flooding in the area. Using a tired old Internet meme to get those issues across trivializes the whole thing, though.