Category Archive for: kapitalista

komentaryo

kaya ng powers ko! — or the patience for meralco

You know there’s something wrong when you don’t understand your bills di’ba? But of course this has been happening since forever, since I started paying my own bills. Long ago, a housemate asked: do you think Meralco’s really charging us more than it should? Sure that this was (is) the nature of capitalists like the Lopezes, I said, of course! even when I couldn’t explain how or why.

Oh but the powers of perseverance coupled with the patience of pregnancy, and bills that seem to grow expensive by the month! There’s also, of course, the continued distrust in capitalism and government. This was first published in early May of the year via www.stuartsantiago.com, long before Judy Ann Santos did the paid ad of Meralco, and dared talk about her reading of her Meralco bill, insisting that it’s the correct one. To wit, Juday says of her “meralco-is-innocent-reading”: “Yan ang basa ko. Tingnan mo sa bill mo. Maliwanag.”

E ang totoo, hindi nga maliwanag. So here’s a rundown of what I’ve figured out so far. (more…)

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Getting Away With It

Since the ULTRA stampede there seems to be no end to insults added to the injury that is the senseless death of 74 Filipinos and the battery of over 600 others, who remain nameless and faceless, only identifiable by the label masa.

The first insult is the most obvious. Although it took ABS-CBN most of Saturday to take responsibility for the tragedy, when they finally did it also decided to work overtime – and not just in assisting the victims as Tina Monzon-Palma would like to make us believe. In fact, it was pretty obvious that from the beginning, ABS-CBN’s machinery was also working towards damage control, with rhetoric that ranged from “no one wanted this to happen, we are shouldering all expenses, we are doing everything we can to assist the victims of this tragedy, we are taking responsibility” which has of course evolved into “this tragedy is a wake-up call for all of us, to the whole nation, because we are now dealing with the issue of the economy and poverty” as well as “we never treated our audience as animals, we are here for only one reason and that is to entertain”.

This spin of course began with Charo Santos-Concio in pale (peaceful) blue, close to tears, obviously in awe of what had happened; Tina Monzon-Palma in (serene) white, composed and ready to take on the challenge that was the tragedy; and close-ups of the casually-clad ABS-CBN CEO (in a T-shirt and a baseball cap) Gabby Lopez and environmentalist-sister Gina Lopez – both obviously distraught. And then there was Willie Revillame, in tears, and just all over the place. By the afternoon of the tragedy, soundbites from Sharon Cuneta and Joey Reyes via the station’s ETK (showbiz) talkshow were heard, and right there the spin that would be central to damage control began: the real reason for this tragedy is poverty.

A day after the tragedy, ABS-CBN’s biggest and brightest stars, come together in prayer – in public. Televised for their benefit, we are treated to cameras panning the length of pews and across aisles showing ABS-CBN bigwigs with Dolphy and Maricel Soriano, their teen stars and their comediennes, as well as Kris Aquino serving at the altar, all obviously sincere in their grief. And then, the gist of one of their prayers: we are broken and suffering, please heal our ABS-CBN family and guide us in recovering from this trial. And then the CBB (closing billboard) of the mass with the title “Isang Pamamaalam” and one wonders, goodbye to whom? This is perfectly followed by Gary V. opening the variety show ASAP with the song “The Warrior is a Child” – as if speaking of themselves as the child who “lately has been winning battles left and right, but even winners get wounded in the fight”. And a soundbite: people are willing to die for them at ABS-CBN.

Revillame has since been hailed hero by this station; Boy Abunda and Kris Aquino have reiterated that ABS-CBN is helping out in many and various ways, and that they started doing so without being asked; it has been said that they are adopting the families of those who had died for the whole year. As ABS-CBN went back to normal broadcast, its news and current affairs programs as well as their cable news channel ANC continued the spin: Revillame going to each of the wakes of all 74 victims; Gabby Lopez angered by the assertion that the audience had been “treated like animals”; the ABS-CBN Foundation (tax-shield as it is) putting out all the money in order to assist the victims. ANC and shows like The Correspondents have gone on to interview various “experts” on the topic – at least Gigi Grande of the latter had the sense to go for sociologist Randy David who reiterated ABS-CBN’s responsibilities. ANC, on the other hand, has gone into tangential issues: Pinky Webb talking about poverty in this country, and interviewing the wrong resource person – the secretary of the Commission on the Eradication of Poverty who only had government propaganda numbers (only 27% are impoverished in this country!); Cito Beltran talking about debriefing and emotional recovery for victims, as well as looking into the liability of places such as ULTRA and pointing a finger at the city government’s having allowing such a dangerous entrance to the venue; Ces Drilon talking to Michael Tan about the latter’s conclusions on the cultural implications of a tragedy such as this – we are a people that collectively ignores rules and cannot fall in line, we are a people in search of idols.

And therefore, the tragedy?

The biggest and most unforgivable insult of all is the fact that a week after the stampede that killed 74 Filipinos, we continue to prove ourselves incompetent of dealing critically with this tragedy.

Opinion columnists and TV personalities have helped along, if not parroted, the rhetoric of ABS-CBN. Yes, many assert that ABS-CBN, as the organizers, must take responsibility. But practically everyone has zeroed in on various causes of the tragedy – that is, other than the host of a party sending out more invitations than the venue allowed. People have been wont to look at what they call the final analysis, the bigger picture, the bottomline, with many, like Cuneta, asserting that poverty is the reason for this tragedy. Some, like Belinda Olivares-Cunanan and Neal H. Cruz, bring it as high as GMA – she whose responsibility it is to alleviate poverty. And then there are those like Tan, reading the tragedy and saying it is first about idolatry, and then later about a culture of anarchy. This is no different from the many who insist on looking at that crowd and reading them as savages: that stampede, they say, was a mob, this crowd of people were uncivilized creatures who couldn’t, wouldn’t follow simple rules; blame must rest on that person who pushed first. This, even Winnie Monsod accedes to, as she says in her Debate spiel: this is not about poverty, this is about people’s greed, and how they will step on other people just to get what they want.

That day of the incident, when everyone including the Vice President kept mouthing the words “puno’t dulo” I was forgiving; we were all stunned by the incident after all and weren’t ready to point a finger. But now, a week into the tragedy, with ABS-CBN soundbites and images in our heads, with a failed DILG report, and the NBI entering the picture, it just seems like were being way too kind to not point fingers. Or maybe, just plain stupid?

Poverty is the answer to many things, but what is the important question here and now? If we are looking for who could’ve prevented this tragedy, if we are looking for the reason behind this tragedy, if we are looking (as we should) for someone to blame for such senseless deaths, the answer is obvious. The bottomline of this tragedy is ABS-CBN’s lack of preparation, and their underestimation of a hungry, tired, and impoverished crowd’s capability to be rowdy and unruly when lured with the possibility of getting P1 million, and then are told that it would be impossible for them to have that chance. The bottomline is ABS-CBN, proved itself undeserving of the adulation of the masa it says it serves and wants to help, as they did not make sure that this masa would be treated with an organized humane system while waiting for ULTRA gates to open, days before it was suppose to. The bottomline is ABS-CBN chose the ULTRA as venue – bad roads, steep declines, narrow passageways – included, and Wowowee’s producers had command responsibility the moment the people they had invited started to arrive. The bottomline is that Willie Revillame, through ABS-CBN, invited his viewers to come and join their anniversary celebration, dangling money, the house, the jeepney and taxi, and pandering to these masa’s needs and most ardent desires.

The bottomline is really quite simple: ABS-CBN is a capitalist media organization, out to make a profit, on precisely the poverty that many say is the root of all this evil. They may be entertaining this audience along the way, and helping those who are lucky enough to be picked, I will not argue with that. But intention and benevolence is irrelevant to the fact that 74 Filipinos have died and hundreds more were injured on their invitation. This is blood on their hands, no ifs and buts about it.

Poverty is only the context of this tragedy, it is not the bottomline. I do not doubt that it brought the masa there. But it was upon the invitation of Revillame, it was upon the media hype of ABS-CBN, that they flocked to ULTRA oblivious to the lack of a safe, secure and organized system that underlies the “first-come-first-served” invitation. Poverty should not be espoused in the same breath as ABS-CBN’s command responsibility. The more we use the idea of poverty in relation to this tragedy, the higher the probability that ABS-CBN will be able to successfully turn this around and make themselves the victims, if not the heroes, in this all. The more we muddle discussions on the tragedy with big words like poverty, eradication, culture, the more the ABS-CBN machinery will be allowed to abuse the dead, the grieving, and the tragic in the name of profit and ratings. And the greater the possibility that they will get away with it. If they haven’t yet.

Let’s keep an eye on that ball and demand that ABS-CBN pay dearly and equally for the lives lost in that Saturday stampede.

And then let’s talk about poverty, since, as it turns out we all care so much for the masses we say are victimized by this system that has impoverished them. While we’re at it, let’s talk about the farmers of Hacienda Luisita, the workers of Nestle, as we do the urban poor who flocked to ULTRA. Let’s make the past and present governments pay for their irresponsibility. Let’s deal with the fact that many of us only want to speak of poverty now, that 74 people have died for nothing and no one, in ULTRA. Then let’s prove that we can keep our collective eye on that bigger ball. And involve ourselves in solving that bigger problem.

As for Mareng Winnie, I tell you this: try living off of one meal a day, or minimum wage, and let’s see if you don’t start making a distinction between greed and desperation.

komentaryo

Killing Credibility on TV

For the longest time we have complained about media credibility, or the lack of it, with TV taking most of the blame – high profile, profitable, and in-our-faces as it is. A decade ago, it was about Mel Tiangco and Jay Sonza selling laundry soap while being ABS-CBN 2 news and current affairs show hosts; now, it isn’t as simple as just endorsing a product. Don’t get me wrong, doing an advertisement still puts the credibility of any news personality into question; but since news personalities shifted to careers in politics, and since so many of them have shown their partisan colors in various ways, and then have had the gall to return to television and speak as if we didn’t hear them, i.e., Dong Puno (lives!), even more has been going on than just having Mareng Winnie Monsod and her ilk sell laundry detergent.

There has been, for example, the exodus of news and current affairs personalities between the two giant networks in this country – an act that has become so normal, it’s gone unquestioned. But certain things are put to the fore when someone who spews the news and speaks of nation decides to move employers without a reason as big as that of Mel’s and Jay’s, where a case was brought before the courts. There’s the fact that in this country, the job of a news and current affairs personality isn’t really about doing good for the country as they like to remind us everyday, but about greener pastures and better opportunities for individual gains. We are also made to face the fact that this is all about the money, and that at this point, our news and current affairs people are no different from artistas whose services may be acquired by the highest bidder. All these overlook the fact of loyalty, and really, truly standing for the organization one works and speaks for. When a news personality can switch from calling herself a ka-puso to a ka-pamilya with the blink of an eye, then that news personality also loses all credibility, no ifs and buts about it. And let’s not even go in the direction of the argument that goes: “why are you picking on us? we’re no different from doctors or lawyers who switch hospitals or law firms!” Because that is just untrue. Media, particularly news and current affairs personalities who are in our faces everyday, are different. They mouth credibility and authority on issues. They carry with their titles a huge responsibility to a public that listens to them as if they speak the truth of the times.

Of course given the way things are, and because no one complains, things were meant to get worse. Welcome, lifestyle TV in local broadcasting!

Now, lifestyle isn’t bad per se. When ABS-CBN 2 came out with F, it was funky, fun and Pinay, and wasn’t wont to sell every fad, spa, or clothes store (as it does now). With it came pretty girls Daphne, Cher, and Angel, among whom only the latter was familiar as a model and actress; and all of whom found a niche in the fashion, style, nightlife segment of ABS-CBN’s news and current affairs division. And then they started having Cher do the Channel 23 news, and it was a sign of things to come. Having seen her partying, pigging out, dressing up, and talking about the clothes and make-up she likes on F – it was just difficult to believe her as a news anchor. I mean, there she was, looking credible, supposedly dishing out the news with objectivity, as scenes of her talking about her favorite color lipstick and how much it is, or the image of her in a tube top eating out and partying, kept replaying in my head. It was a wrong move all around, both for the news program and F (nomatter that she got that gig in the States). But as wrong moves go, this was the tip of the iceberg.

Recently, news and current affairs personalities have gone on to be “lifestyled” – and one only needs to think Korina Sanchez with Kris Aquino on Morning Girls to realize that it’s the worst move ever. Of course, I doubt it will ever be thought of by ABS-CBN 2 as such, but it must be seen for what it is beyond being a money-making venture: it destroyed Korina Sanchez’s credibility as a news and current affairs personality. She didn’t stand to gain anything by talking about her lipstick color, her hair, her clothes, and even her lovelife on nationwide television. If ABS-CBN thought Korina’s credibility would lend credence to a morning lifestyle cum talkshow, then it thought wrong, because it was Kris’ strong showbiz personality that actually killed Korina’s and the show’s credibility. In the end it was just some other talkshow that was wont to be irrelevant instead of relevant, credulous instead of credible, selling everything from the newest loveteams to the hottest spa or cosmetic procedures. If anyone stood to gain anything from Morning Girls, it was Mar Roxas – singing to Korina, and holding her hand too often in our mornings – and he did get that senate seat.

Let’s give Korina this though: she always showed a hint of discomfort, even shame, when conversations were steered towards make-up, clothes, and her personal life. That’s so much more than can be said of news and current affairs personalities who have actually decided that there is virtue in sharing their lives and styles beyond the news and their current affairs shows. Long ago, lines were clearly drawn between our artistas who stand to gain from putting up their lives for criticism, and news and current affairs personalities whose personal lives were irrelevant to their public persona. Now, none of that is clear anymore, as what we have are TV personalities, all of whom unthinkingly share too much of their personal lives with the public, making all of them mere feed for criticism, showbiz chismis, and sponsors. How else does one explain having news people being linked to boldstars and headlining showbiz talkshows? Why else do we have our current affairs hosts talking about botox injections, designer outfits, and Vicky Belo? And then our news people wonder why they’ve ceased to be credible, and are being disrespected.

Lessons may be learned from the likes of ABS-CBN 2 Correspondents Jim Libiran and Abner Mercado and I-witness reporters Jay Taruc and Maki Pulido whose lives we know nothing of but whose reports we look forward to; even Patrick Paez, “lifestyled” by marriage to F girl Daphne, has kept his private life to himself. Mike Enriquez and Mel Tiangco, do it just as well, hi-profile as they are (though the latter has fallen prey to showbiz magazine Yes! which featured her not-so-humble abode); and even young-ish Vicky Morales and Rhea Santos have kept their private lives, well, private – no televised lavish weddings in sight.

The truth is, news and current affairs personalities don’t stand to gain anything by showing us their mansions and pets, by talking to us about their hair and make-up rituals and favorite designer clothes and jewelry, botox and cosmetic procedures, by appearing (being photographed) in high-profile, ultra-expensive parties rubbing elbows with the elite of this country. In fact, we don’t need to know how our news people stay goodlooking, it’s enough that they don’t look terrible or obese (calling on Jessica Soho!). We don’t need to know how much they earn because we can just imagine. We don’t need information on their private lives because if anything, this ruins everything for us, particularly when we realize how rich they’ve become and what exactly they spend their money on while they spew concern, and purportedly speak, for the less fortunate in this country every chance they get.

Bottom line is, we only really want to have people who will ask the right questions and deliver the right news about the issues that are important to us as a nation. But then even that has become tricky. And the culprit is but one word: current.

Since “news and public affairs” became “news and current affairs” post-EDSA, what needs to be talked about has become obscured by what will bring in the ratings and therefore the cash, because it is the issue of the day. And so Dong Puno Live will as quickly talk about FHM and have boldstar Asia Agcaoili as guest, as Mareng Winnie and Pareng Oca Orbos will interview the boldie group D’Bodies over on Debate about their publicity stunt of dancing practically naked on the streets of Manila. And so time and again, we are forced to watch news and current affairs personalities asking inane questions of equally inane guests on irrelevant but “current” topics that range from cosmetic surgeries to the newest blind item, the latest fad diet to the “in” hang-out places, the most famous loveteams to Korean telenovela stars; they will even talk to Eddie Gil and feature him every chance they get. This, as the issues of debt and taxes, globalization and dead industries haunt us everyday. At this point, our news and current affairs shows practically all seem like Studio 23’s Wazzup Wazzup! And that just might be offensive to the latter.

Of course sometimes decisions are actually made about what is important and relevant – say the war in Mindanao, the economy, globalization, even Hacienda Luisita. But these discussions only go as far as asking who? what? when? where? instead of the more important why? what can we do? and what needs to be done? The most shallow of questions are asked, and the most obvious and safe conclusions are arrived at, and in ungrammatical English and Tagalog at that.

Now, that’s discussion for another essay altogether.

komentaryo

INCREDIBLE KRIS

In what universe is Kris Aquino “api”? In what country can she be called hero? Not in this one where she has the gall to talk about her jewelry as “katas ng Hacienda Luisita”; where she has the audacity to talk about owning, and actually encourages us all to buy, 13,000-peso jeans (because they fit really well!); where she says of making commercials: “Wala lang, nagpapayaman lang”; and where, unhappy with her body, she has her boobs enhanced and her waist trimmed, and brags about it.

I understand the value of a woman of her stature coming out in the open about a violent relationship. I understand that she may be speaking for the 6 out of 10 women who are battered every day. But let’s be clear about something here: Kris was NOT a meek woman in this relationship. She was a powerful woman, she was hitting back. “Nagkakasakitan kami”, not “Sinasaktan ako”, an admission that she herself could be violent.

Of course there is absolutely no excuse for any man to hurt a woman physically, but this assumes that the women of this world have yet to turn violent on their men, and this presupposes that women do not and cannot tell lies about domestic violence. In the world beyond feminist and women’s liberation theory, in the real world where Kris Aquino and I live, not all women who cry wolf aren’t wolves themselves. Tell me how powerless Kris Aquino is when she has the sense to burn their bed and grab Marquez’s balls. Tell me why it isn’t possible that a woman of Aquino’s standing could threaten to ruin another person’s career and thereby prove that people will believe her more than any other.

Please. Let us not paint Kris Aquino as the victim here. It is she who made a victim of Alma Moreno and her kids; she made a victim of Joshua, she made victims of Cory Aquino and Noynoy Aquino. Most of all she made a victim of us all – her public, who swallowed her truth-telling act, her my-life-is-an-open-book dramatics, and who did not mind that she made a lot of money out of it. She said she was beating Marquez’s camp to the punch by talking about the violent relationship, the emotional battering, the STD; she said Marquez was out to ruin her credibility. I ask: what credibility? She herself ruined it. She had made us believe all this time that she was okay sa alright! – never mind the rules she was breaking. She had made us believe that she was THE woman of the millennium, the woman of achievement that we should emulate, and hers the life of the rich and famous that we should all aspire for. And now she hides behind the idea na “Tao lang, nagkakasala”? She sold us lies about her life, and now she’s being allowed to hide behind the stereotype of a battered woman, meek and silent, which she isn’t?

Please. Let us not make Kris Aquino a woman’s hero on the basis of an incident that we haven’t heard both sides of. She could be telling the truth this time, but it shouldn’t elevate her to some women’s lib hall of fame. The number of women reporting domestic abuse may rise, but it shouldn’t mean that she is now the epitome of what a strong woman should be. Let us not forget that this woman, whom everyone from Atty. Katrina Legarda to Gabriela’s Lisa Masa would like to call hero, sells whitening soap to a land of morena women, encourages us all to get breast implants and liposuction, and has already abused another woman – Alma Moreno, by ruining her and her kids’ chance at a family – just because Joey Marquez could be the man for her. (A party-list organization has joined the fray and encouraged Kris to file an official complaint against Marquez through their “Report-A-Mistress Campaign” – e, sinong ire- report ni Kris, sarili niya?)

Utang na loob. Let us not be blind to what Kris Aquino already is and will continue to be after all of these. She’s a media person who rakes in millions of pesos making commercials that raise women’s material needs, who batters women’s confidence by telling them to get whiter, smell better, have more boobs, and who parades her jewels, expensive clothes and shoes – flaunting her wealth, literally and tastelessly – on nationwide television in this poor Third World nation. This Kris is not and should not be seen as separate or distinct from Kris Aquino “the battered live-in partner”. Kris Aquino is one woman, and she makes this whole nation live with and suffer her adolescent contradictions every time she washes her dirty laundry in our faces.

In no universe should Kris Aquino be considered hero. In no universe is Kris Aquino “api”. And it is only in this mababaw ang kaligayahan Kris Aquino country – where activists jump at any prospect of a tactical alliance and where advocacy groups fish for spokespersons – that she will in time rise again and wrap us all aroundher little finger yet again. That is, unless we keep her from doing so. Unless we stop all these personalities – from Fidel Ramos talking about Marquez’s political career to the Fortun brothers rising from Jose Velarde’s ashes – from gaining any more media mileage out of the controversy. Unless we all – including the media – get smarter and wiser about this unsolvable, and embarrassing, problem that is Kris.

Let’s start by looking at the real heroes in all of these.

Let’s look at the woman that Alma Moreno is. She who didn’t badmouth Kris when news broke about the latter’s affair with her husband. She who had the good sense to keep quiet for the sake of her and Marquez’s kids. She who has endured the violence wreaked on her family by Kris Aquino, and who continues to endure it, having to explain to her kids why they are being teased in school.

Let’s look at Noynoy Aquino and how he has handled this situation with well-chosen words for Kris but not against Joey. How he is being the big brother that he has said he is so many times in the past, even when Kris would talk about him on nationwide television as the bane of her existence. How he has not sensationalized the issue and has kept it on the level of a family crisis, letting women’s advocates take it for what they think it is.

We want anyone to gain from this? Let it be Noynoy. For if there’s any Aquino who deserves the limelight, who is intelligent and level-headed, who can truly say that he can do something for this country, whom we would like to see and hear more of – if there’s one Aquino of whom Ninoy can be proud, it is Noynoy.

Let Kris Aquino rest from the limelight. And give this poor nation a rest from Kris Aquino. (Mga ten years.)

komentaryo

Afraid of ABS-CBN

Published in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, “Talk of the Town Section” editorial section, January 11 2004

For most of the past two weeks, newscasts, newspapers, internet publications, and email inboxes have been bombarded with expressions of disgust and dismay at how the elections seem to be shaping up – tragedy, farce, theater of the absurd – between a Panday presidentiable and a political party named K-4, between a Captain Barbell senatoriable and the return of the EDSA Dos Most Hated.

Worse, the two top vice-presidentiables (one of whom would take over should the winning president go the way of Erap) are both media personalities of ABS-CBN 2, which is owned by the Lopezes, who also own Meralco, cable TV, and Bayantel, among others. And now that Noli de Castro has teamed up with GMA and Loren Legarda with FPJ, it’s not surprising that there are screams of “Sell out! Sell out!”. I, on the other hand, stare at my bloated Meralco bill in exasperation. For no matter who wins, the Lopezes will have one of their very own up there in the corridors of power to protect their varied business interests.

If it weren’t so offensive – and scary – I’d say it was brilliant. Here we have a big business conglomerate that is not only creating TV personalities and making money out of them through the ratings game, they are also having them run for public office, inevitably (it would seem) to serve as their loyal puppets once in government. What a clever way for the Lopezes to acquire political power without any of the Lopezes themselves running for office.

Of course, de Castro and Legarda deny brokering behind-the-scenes deals between their presidentiables and the Lopezes. Even the Lopezes deny it, saying that both de Castro and Legarda have minds of their own and make their own decisions – they are, after all, credible ABS-CBN current affairs people.

Really now. Then why is it that no ABS-CBN personality tackled the issue of Meralco overcharging its consumers? One saw (sees) Kris Aquino saying that it’s soooo easy to get your money back, and that this is kagandahang loob, in the same way that Ces Drilon has said that making the Lopezes give the masa their money back is something that’s anti-business. Noli himself has said that there’s nothing wrong with the Lopezes as they own legitimate businesses, conveniently forgetting – as does his interviewer from ABS-CBN – that Meralco, for one, has been found guilty of overcharging consumers, which makes it an abusive, if legitimate, business.

Unwittingly or not, this is what the Lopezes have created through ABS-CBN: media people who wear, and profit from, the cloak of “public service and current affairs” but who are obviously equipped, and only allowed, to serve the interests of big business and the cows they hold sacred. They’re also allowed to peddle clothes on billboards along EDSA, just as they are allowed to make commercials on TV. Nevermind that this contradicts the whole idea of credibility. I often wonder if these “public servants” have even read the basics of Philippine history and politics as exposed by Renato Constantino in 1973, or current books on media by the PCIJ, or NatSits (national situationers) on the economy and society by academics who dare dispute government propaganda. I seriously doubt it, as the questions they ask about issues betray them.

De Castro and Legarda are no exception. If anything, they are prime examples of how a media giant can create talents who believe and know nothing but their own propaganda. At least GMA 7 has yet to put together propaganda for Jay Sonza who’s running for senator. At least FPJ’s the big boss who creates propaganda for himself. De Castro and Legarda have bigger, more powerful, bosses above them to whom they’re beholden for all the good propaganda they’re getting – propaganda that, in fact, gives them the guts to run and allows them to win.

The fact is, “Kabayan” isn’t any different from “Captain Barbell” and “Ang Panday” in the sense that all three are on-screen personae that are carried over into real life, not necessarily by the audience. ABS-CBN itself uses “Kabayan” to refer to Noli, a classic example of how it uses its current affairs arm to sell its own-never mind how this contradicts the station’s claims to objectivity and public service. And unless we all consciously campaign against an ABS-CBN government, believe you me, we will get one in the future, with everyone from Noli to Loren, Remulla to Korina, Edu to Dennis Padilla, Herbert Bautista to Aiko Melendez, Boy Abunda to Kris Aquino in the top positions of the land. And we can all watch our Meralco bills, among others, bloat like there’s no tomorrow.