Solid Group launches 'Ninoy-Cory' cellphone

MANILA, Philippines - The Solid Group, makers of the only Filipino mobile phone brand My Phone, has come up with the “NinoyCory phone,” the first series in the company’s My Heroes line of collector phones.

The mobile phone comes in Cory yellow, with the signature Ninoy eyeglasses in front and images of Ninoy and Cory at the back. When one clicks the yellow ribbon icon on the phone’s menu, a number of items would appear, including prayers, an Aquino biography, Ninoy and Cory trivia, Ninoy and Cory inspirational messages, Ninoy’s letters and poems, Cory’s personal prayers, Aquino speeches, the Aquino library, and the Aquino gallery.

One look at the phone and one will immediately realize that it is not just for Cory or Ninoy followers. Even the faithful will find the phone handy as it contains audio files of the Rosary, Stations of the Cross, various novenas (Lady of Manaoag, Perpetual Help, Sto. Nino, Black Nazarene, Lady of Antipolo, Lady Mediatrix, Lady of Guadalupe, St. Clare and St. Jude), common prayers (morning offering, Angelus, three o’clock prayer, evening prayer, Our Father, Hail Mary), intercession prayers, as well as ebooks of the entire Bible, to name a few.

Solid Group president David Lim told The STAR that while he does not know Ninoy or Cory personally, Kris Aquino’s appearance on television following her mother’s death her she would continue supporting elder brother Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III’s plans and that she would continue their devotion to the rosary gave Lim the idea of producing just 20 phones for the Aquino family.

The Solid Group just released the Pinoy phone which contains the rosary as well as 132 other prayers, and this gave Lim the idea of giving the Aquino family a memorabilia of Ninoy and Cory.

“I called up the factory (the Myphone brand of mobile phones are made in the China factory of the Lim family which produces the Amoy phone, one of the biggest phone brands in China but everything else, including the software is manufactured in the Philippines) and asked them to produce 20 phones for the Aquino family. My mom (businesswoman Elena Lim) knows Cory very well. We had no plans of launching it, just a keepsake for the Aquino family,” Lim said.

The idea of producing more of the NinoyCory phones came one day when Lim met somebody abroad who was looking for a yellow phone, and who was saying that the Pinoy phone series of MyPhone came only in black, white, red, green and orange. The girl happens to be a cousin of Rafael “Rapa” Lopa, a nephew of Cory, who immediately called upon learning of the plan to produce a limited number of NinoyCory phones.

“She said that everybody should remember Cory. That led to our meeting with the Benigno Aquino Foundation,” Lim said.

The Solid Group top executive said a large number of the NinoyCory phone’s content came from the Foundation and that the company immediately put up a team to work on it.  “I also remembered that when Cory died, my mom wrote a poem which she just scribbled on scratch paper. I asked her for it and it is reproduced in the phone,” Lim revealed.

At the launch of the NinoyCory phone alone, the Solid Group had to produce 30,000 phones. “And to think that we started it only 45 days ago. Considering that we are pressed for time, we can still polish the content,” he said. The number of NinoyCory phones that will be made available to the market will depend on how the public accepts it.

“It is very exciting. People, including those in our office, are grabbing the phones and want not just one, but two, even 20 at a time. After all, it is the first prayer phone ever made,” Lim added.

The phone sells for P4,990 and is the first Qwerty phone to be released under the MyPhone brand.

He said because Solid Group believes in the projects of the Benigno Aquino Foundation, including education and feeding programs, the company will be donating a certain amount to the foundation, which did not charge anything when it shared some of the contents of the phone.

Asked how the Aquino family reacted to the phone, Lim said: “They love it.”  

Lim also told the STAR they are now in talks with a number of parties to decide on who will be featured next in MyPhone’s My Hero series. “There are several candidates. We are thinking of Ka Erdy Manalo for the Iglesia ni Cristo group and we are still in discussions with Manny Pacquiao’s group,” he revealed.

Solid Group plans to release 16 other variations of the Qwerty phone in the next two to three months, all of which will be entry-level phones.

The company does not charge for the content, just the phone and the cost of the memory card.