Tag Archives: Storyline

komentaryo

a resigned Ressa, a resigned us

why ABS-CBN? why would any network, in fact, let Maria Ressa go? it barely makes sense, if we know of her and her news and current affairs management and the ways she’s changed the news as we see it. and no, I don’t buy that whole refusal-to-renew-the-contract story, because really you can beg/ plead/ grovel to keep someone on your side,  especially when they’ve done so well, have outdone too many, in fact.

and this Maria has done for ABSCBN, allowing for ANC on Channel 27 to be the one and only reason we are still on Lopez-owned HomeCable even when they continue to provide horrible service especially since they forced subscribers to shift to the digiboxes. her management has single-handedly raised the bar for current affairs shows allowing for something as creative as Storyline to be on air, and bringing back the talk show that ain’t showbiz. of course all these have been on ANC, a cable news channel, but  at least for those of us who can afford cable, there’s a better alternative to news that happens so late in the evening because of the stretch of soap operas (beginning at 7PM and ending at 11:30PM).

and if you don’t agree with any of these, or just don’t have ANC (good for you for refusing the cultural empire of the Lopezes), then at least under Maria’s leadership, local channels have again started to do live broadcasts of senate hearings and such, because ANC was doing it.

this is not to agree with Maria’s management decisions all the time, nor is it to absolve ABSCBN (or any other network for that matter) from responsibility in the Manila hostage tragedy. in fact, I didn’t like that her Wall Street Journal article appeared so soon after the tragedy, adding salt to the wound, if not cutting deeper into it.

BUT I appreciate Maria’s chutzpah, her daring, even when faced with the probability of a collective disgust, or just a critical reader. I remember on Twitter soon after the hostage tragedy, her timeline was riddled with angry followers asking her in so many words what was she thinking!?! I thought Maria handled it with much grace and control, responding when she needed to, when it was a new question that she had yet to answer, and ignoring the redundant and the rhetorically angry.

this also isn’t to say that this was all good, or that we agreed all the time with the way the news was delivered/chosen/spun by ABS-CBN under Maria’s watch. this is to say that in truth there were such real and palpable and concrete changes in news and current affairs, and in which case, there were also better conversations about politics, and more creative documentaries about this country.

of course there’s still i-witness on GMA 7 which is still the best local docu-show I continue to see, and there still is Cheche Lazaro Presents on ABSCBN, whose Vizconde Massacre feature last night was just wonderfully done. but really, where else would Storyline see the light of day, or Strictly Politics, or Media in Focus? this doesn’t mean that we don’t complain about these shows, or that they are always without fault, or are always intelligently done. but this is to say that these are wonderful testaments to what can still happen for local news and current affairs, that we need not be stuck on CNN and BBC for better versions of the local.

in fact, under Maria’s watch, I remembered how I grew up with Randy David and Louie Beltran having their regular political and public affairs shows. yes, this was the time of public affairs versus current affairs, the time when relevance was still most important, versus just being news worthy. but that would be stuff for another blog entry.

here and now the question remains: but why? why let Maria Ressa go, what’s the real score here? though maybe we should be happy enough with, uh, tsismis being infinitely more interesting, even when – or maybe precisely because – it’s in relation to news and current affairs.

and as far as ABSCBN’s concerned?  I don’t think they fool anyone anymore given that the network’s the flagship of a Lopez empire. If anything, it has also become obvious that while they demand that politicians and government be transparent, they can only be farthest from being so themselves. now, in light of their maltreatment of workers finally becoming newsworthy, well, it’s easy to see how Maria’s notions of fairness and justice might not have worked in her favor after all.

so maybe she didn’t resign as damage control would like to point out, but this does feel like resignation, in the i-concede-my-hands-are-up kind of way. and Maria may deny it, but the rest of us can’t: the times when someone like her decides that it’s time to let go, it’s those times that we are forced to concede to the way things are or will inevitably become.

and for some reason, i have a sinking feeling that Maria’s leaving will mean having Kris Aquino back on TV, in what i imagine will be that past-publicized current affairs show. sana ‘wag na lang.

komentaryo

the eyes have it? patricia evangelista votes!

I have personally taken to ignoring Patricia Evangelista. now that she has gone up the ladder of media empire ABS-CBN as creator and producer of Storyline (which does romanticize tragedy in its writing, camerawork, conceptualization), there seems to be no stopping this girl. yes, even when half the time what she does in her Philippine Daily Inquirer opinion column is rehash what it is that has come out in her TV show. signs of these media times? there’s is no explanation for cheap thrills. or notions of credibility.

but it is precisely because she is in these positions of “credibility” that sometimesit is just difficult to ignore Patricia, lest she be under the illusion that she’s getting away with saying things that limn over the bigger issues of the day, as she passes her opinions off as political and correct and valid. at the very least, she passes them off as well-informed and well thought out, when really, they are far from it.

in her last column “Chiz Escudero 2010” Patricia spent most of her space rehashing what Chiz Escudero said at his press con announcing his defection from NPC, then she summarized it by saying that all Chiz did was to say that “a man running for president must not belong to a party, because to belong to a party is to give up independence of action”.

that this conclusion glosses over the other things that Chiz did say at the press con in relation to being freed from party politics is just so un-journalistic, and goodness, just downright uncritical.  this is a grave simplification of what it is that went on in that press con, an unacceptable display of an inability to see beyond one’s own biases – one that is for Noynoy Aquino (which we will get to in a bit).

so in the process of dissing Chiz, Patricia reveals that she can’t even respond to the more important things that he had raised: a brave stance versus contractualization and the oil deregulation law, versus the oligarchy’s ways of demeaning the jobs of those in the lower rungs of government service, versus the pork barrel, versus corrupt government officials. this is more than any of the presidentiables have dared say about their platform, about what it is that ails current politics, about what is all wrong here. an intelligent and critical reading of what went on at that press con would’ve meant looking not just at what Chiz announced, but at what else he did say.

and then Patricia reveals her simplistic analysis of Chiz’s defection: that since Chiz said that he has never been dictated upon by the NPC, this defection is meaningless. really now. to say that he has never been dictated by his party, doesn’t mean that there has never been any pressure to go with the party’s political flow and flaws. that Chiz has remained as part of the opposition despite NPC politics is a good thing, not a bad thing. that he now decided that he wants out, out of Danding country, out of party politics, is a good thing.

that in the process Chiz reveals the evils that exist in, the limitations of being part of, a party like the NPC is a fantastic thing.

was this all about him? absolutely. is it possibly about us too, as an electorate intelligently looking for options and wanting change? absolutely.

does Patricia know this? obviously not. in the end, she only revealed herself to be part of the youth who are closet-conservatives, unable to see the value of revolt, the importance of an ability to rebel, to break through the boxes that define who we are. these members of the middle to upper class youth are the scariest kind because they imagine themselves as intelligent voters, they imagine themselves critical, and the future of the nation. and yet when they are faced with the choice between revolt and compromise, change and the status quo, they will weigh things according to their own personal stakes: will i be able to keep my job, will i be able to keep my friends, will i be able to keep my reputation? and in the end they will choose the happy comforts of their old lives, stay where they are, blindly criticize those who shout based on the mere fact that they are shouting.

Patricia ends her tirade againstChiz’s defection from the NPC with

Mostly, I write this because, very frankly, I cannot trust a man whose mouth says one thing, and his eyes another.

now frankly, I wonder what it is that’s in Chiz’s eyes. or in Noynoy’s for that matter – he who is obviously Patricia’s candidate because, as she says, Chiz’s decision to defect is sold as

another touchstone of national change on the heels of Noynoy Aquino’s rise as the nation’s moral, if less articulate choice.

in the guise of being objective, i.e., acknowledging how Chiz’s defection is being seen, Patricia only reveals her own biases: that Noynoy is only a “less articulate” choice, and nothing else.

I wonder if she realizes that in the process of assessing Noynoy as such she has put her foot in her mouth, proving to us all that she has yet to even assess Noynoy as her candidate, over and above what he says.

oh, but wait, maybe that is the point: Noynoy has yet to have anything to say. At the rate the Aquino campaign is going, we’re hearing more of Kris. or is Patricia happy enough listening to her? and pray tell, what do Kris’ eyes tell her? and while she’s at it, since when were people’s eyes the reason for endorsing a candidate? this is not naiveté. this is carelessness. and irresponsibility.

go for it young media practitioner. there’s nowhere to go but up.