Category Archive for: komentaryo

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

Boycott!

published in i magazine, The Investigative Reporting Magazine of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, Vol. X, Nos.1-2, January-June 2004

No, this isn’t about apathy and a lack of interest in my country’s affairs. Nor is this simply about how the roster of candidates and their non-platforms have so stupefied me, I can’t bring myself to even think of voting. While the start of election season has seen me going through varying degrees of dismay, disgust, and distress, it’s not just these that have made me decide not to take part in the May elections. Truth is, long before GMA flip-flopped on her decision not to run, ever since EDSA Dos when the unified mob that stood up against Erap decided to go their separate ways – some on home, some with Cardinal Sin to pray, some with the Left to Mendiola – I have been finding many reasons not to vote, not least of which is the worsening poverty alongside a ballooning foreign debt, and the escalating presence of America in our land.

But the main reason goes beyond government and politics into the state of our minds. I’ve decided not to vote because over the last three years I’ve realized that we – the so-called “educated”, the middle to upper class “intelligent” and “enlightened” sector, the ones who read and write essays like this, including politicians – are actually all in over our heads, unable to make sense of our political and economic troubles, and incapable of working together towards real change. Worse, we actually think we are doing enough for the nation while blindly we accept and promote the Establishment’s propaganda that we need to celebrate our democracy with the vote even when the choices for president are all questionable.

How can we be at fault, you may ask. After all, we are the print and television personalities who fashion ourselves (or are fashioned) as “intellectuals” (sometimes academics) and who make it our business to be critical and to look out for the nation. We are the entrepreneurs who provide jobs, and the individuals who build NGOs to help neglected sectors. We stood up to the Marcos dictatorship and stopped tanks in 1986, then again marched to EDSA in 2000. We would like to think that we work and live for self AND nation. The question is, are our efforts getting the country anywhere near the goal of a happier prouder democracy?

Nowhere near, I would say, considering that even Inquirer’s Conrado de Quiros only goes as far as saying that we are responsible for the ignorant masa, but doesn’t tell us what he thinks we should do about it. Talk shows, like ANC’s Talkback with Tina Monzon Palma can only ask questions like “do political ads affect your vote?” as if the answer isn’t obvious. And on GMA 7, Debate’s Pareng Oca and Mareng Winnie are still stuck, still asking if a candidate’s personal life is important, as if there weren’t other, more important, questions begging to be asked.

The middle and upper classes happily go their separate shallow ways, content to do some good for some marginalized sector or other, but not to work on the flawed system to which it belongs. We’ve become so swift to label each other (communist! rejectionist! sell-out! even, fascist!) as though this were the be-all and end-all of any person, never mind that his or her proposed solution to a national problem may have merit. And for fear of being ourselves labelled, lest we lose our readers/fans/supporters – even present and future jobs – we have become very careful of what we say, and who or what we endorse, in public. It’s self-censorship at its best.

This is why we can celebrate democracy at the same time that we allow government to trample on it by disallowing rallies. We can moan about the how big the foreign debt is, but we can’t bring ourselves to insist that something be done about it. We say we’re pro-Pinoy yet we refuse to demand a pro-Pinoy platform of our presidential candidates. Worse, we do not seem to care, if we’ve noticed at all, that most of these candidates have charter change, specifically, changes in economic provisions, in their agenda, which should be freaking out serious pro-Pinoys!

Rightfully so, we are critical and wary of the wholistic solutions espoused by the extreme Left (communist rule) and the extreme Right (military rule), yet we in the middle have yet to come up with a coherent alternative, a political and economic strategy that would institute radical changes not only in the way we use and share the nation’s resources and do business among ourselves (Christian and Muslim alike), but also in the way we share our resources and do business with the rest of the world. And when someone actually comes up with something important, a must-read, like Walden Bello’s recent two-part essay “Thetragic consequences of doctrinaire economics” (posted on www.inq7.net, Dec. 24, 2003) on the Philippine economy and what we have been doing wrong compared to the rest of tiger Asia, no one prints it, no one reads it, no one takes it up for discussion.

Like Joel Rocamora, I thought for a while that maybe we could unite behind one candidate (my bet was Roco) and actually beat FPJ. But common sense and reality tell me otherwise. As de Quiros says, along with ABS-CBN and GMA 7 ads, voting is a personal thing. To vote is an act of conscience, an act of citizenship and freedom. Unfortunately for this country, this only really means voting for who we personally think will do something for us as individuals and our corresponding ideologies. It’s about self-centered concerns, and it means helping put in the highest position of the land someone who does not truly measure up.

A boycott may not solve anything, but would voting? The fact is, we need more than an election to save us from our troubles, and we need more than an “enlightened” electorate to get a good president. That we cannot even get ourselves a nationalist candidate is a reflection of how little we have come to demand of our leaders, and of ourselves. Too often, we have become like the politicians we complain about – we’ve started to believe our own propaganda and think we are doing enough.

In 1992 I campaigned for Salonga in the first ever election I was interested in. I was too young to vote, and he lost, but it was the only election I felt good about.

Having voted for Erap in ‘98, and participated in an EDSA that did nothing but put GMA in power, I refuse to put my country through the consequences of another of my mistakes. I owe it to my country not to vote. I will not settle for some “lesser evil”.

ComeMay 10 and enough registered voters boycott the exercise (which turn-out statistics would reflect) it would at least send the message to the President-elect that he or she has the vote and confidence of the inadequately informed and the politically naive only. *

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.