You kind of figure that four years of The Marocharim Experiment (yes, TMX was first written November 9, 2004) should be celebrated in the grand manner: like some thoughtful, inspirational post.

Like talking about responsibility, how much times have changed, like how important it is for us to stand up for what we believe in no matter what the cost, no matter what that is.  That we should stand up for what’s right because we write about it.  That we’re more important than what we know and what we believe, but we should keep our feet planted firmly on the ground, knowing that all of this is temporary.

There endeth your one-paragraph summary of what blogging means to me.  Anyway…

One of my favorite moments in “Iisa Pa Lamang” (shit, I’ll actually write about this) was when Isadora caught - yes, caught - the grenade aimed at Sophia by Marco the Psycho.  Like a lot of people, the reason why I so heart IPL are one-liners; where else would you have dialogue like that?

There’s this hypothesis that translation is an epic fail because when you come to think of it, Filipino is more dramatic than English.  In the tradition of TMX, let’s put that hypothesis to the test.

I’ve taken the liberty of translating IPL lines not for the sake of science, but just because after four years of hypothesizing, testing, and concluding… I just want to annoy you.

Continue Reading »

From a CNN report: in Thailand, the flight attendant unions are complaining about a soap opera called “The Battle of Angels,” or “Songkram Nang Fah” in Thai. From what I watched, cabin crew slap each other, yank at each other’s hair, and engage in all-out catfights while dressed in miniskirts. I think of it as Thai-style “Marimar,” with the battle choreography of “Zaido” and the convoluted plot of “La Vendetta.”

So what are the Thai flight attendants so up-in-arms about? They’re worried about the overall “bad impression” that “The Battle of Angels” will have on the viewing public. In the soap opera, flight attendants are dressed in risqué outfits and have sex on flight stopovers. They squabble over the handsome pilot, and bitch-slap each other at high altitudes.

I like it: I can’t wait until they release the DVD version complete with subtitles, and I don’t mind watching a dubbed Filipino version. The idea of high-altitude cat-fights are a welcome respite from the usual formula of a Filipino soap opera.

It’s an automatic choice: “The Battle of Angels,” Pinoy version.

Now the Pinoy version of “The Battle of Angels” is not something I would like to see in GMA-7: I would like to see it in ABS-CBN. ABS’s talent pool is literally oozing with talent suitable for this soap opera.

I’m thinking Anne Curtis, Ruffa Gutierrez, and Jodi Sta. Maria as the stars of this soap. As far as the hunk pilot is concerned, I’m thinking that the Pinoy version of the controversial Thai soap is a good way for Jordan Herrera to make his showbiz comeback (he’s a former adult film star, and he was also in “Pinoy Mano-Mano: The Celebrity Boxing Challenge,” which means he knows a lot about boxing). If that doesn’t work, the best thespic choice for the role of hunk pilot would be Diether Ocampo. After all, “Margarita” flopped.

Speaking of “Margarita,” the Pinoy version of “The Battle of Angels” is a good way to sell the love-team of Wendy Valdez and Bruce Quebral. After all, Wendy has already played the bitch role in “Pinoy Big Brother Season 2.” I also thought of fairly decent titles for the Pinoy version, like “Biyaheng Langit,” “Langit, Lupa, Impyerno,” or “Alapaap.”

Here’s how I see the plot: Anne plays rich girl-turned-noveau poor who is forced to take up a job in an airline to support her family. Diether plays young pilot, and is new to the airline. First day on the job, Diether meets Jordan, his co-pilot. Jodi plays flirtatious flight attendant, fianceé of Diether. Diether falls in love with Anne at first sight. Diether, is engaged to Jodi, so animosity builds up between Anne and Jodi. Enter Ruffa: chief flight attendant, sugar-mommy to Jordan, but has the hots for Diether. Ruffa is willing to dump Jordan for Diether, and Jordan grows suspicious. However, Jordan also has feelings for Anne.

Wendy plays squatter girl near the airport. She is the live-in partner of Bruce, who plays a blue-collar worker. Wendy dreams of being a flight attendant, but Bruce - ever the patriarchal archetypal lalake - would have none of it. While selling halo-halo near the airport, Wendy meets Jordan, and concocts a plan to seduce Jordan for her to be a flight attendant.

Oh yeah, I smell ratings. ABS-CBN producers: here’s your new soap opera.

   As you may very well know by now, the issue on AGB Nielsen’s ”tampered ratings” have become headline stories in four major national newscasts: “24 Oras” and “Saksi” by GMA-7, and “TV Patrol World” and “Bandila” by ABS-CBN.  If that isn’t enough, the two biggest networks in the country have not only taken this to the courts, but are also trying the case on the court of public opinion by running minute-long advertisements on the issue.

   This is obviously not about ratings: this is about dominance and control.  “Ratings” disguises the dominance-and-control agenda implicit in the messages of GMA-7 and ABS-CBN.

   Media - particularly traditional broadcast media - exhibits the potential to dominate and to control the collective consciousness.  More than anybody, they have the capacity and the capability to transmit messages that can (dramatically) alter public opinion and public perception.  As such, it becomes important to someone that calls you “Kapamilya” or “Kapuso” to control you and make you subservient.

   I’d like to be a bit academic (just a bit) with my arguments here: the least I want to happen is for people to misunderstand this idea of “dominance and control” to be a mere rhetorical device I’m employing as a disgruntled viewer.

Subject-referring properties and polarizing dichotomies

   Free TV is not “brainwashing” anyone through mind-altering television signals, but through corporate-guided messages broadcast through those television signals.  GMA-7 and ABS-CBN, through a series of consistent messages, have effectively polarized much of the public between being either “Kapuso” or “Kapamilya.”

   The philosopher Charles Taylor talks about “subject-referring properties:” things that refer to the subject, for example emotions, bear a certain import [1].  These imports sort of “speak” to the subject: a subject deems the thing important, and such sees value - no matter how superficial it is - in the object.

   The term “Kapuso” (employed by GMA-7) speaks to the romantic in every Filipino, while the term “Kapamilya” (employed by ABS-CBN) speaks to core Filipino family values.  The problem is that these are, by and large, catchphrases used by both networks: these are not truly genuine statements of love or of family.  While it is true that some network talents really live up to being “kapamilya” or “kapuso” in the strictest sense of the term, living up to the slogan seems to be much more important.

   What the corporate broadcast media elites have succeeded in doing is to alter the public consciousness enough into believing that “Kapuso” or “Kapamilya” mean something beyond the slogan: that in a shallow semiotic, you are actually a “lover” of, or “family” with, either station.  So much so that there is only but a dichotomy that exists today: it’s either you watch ABS-CBN as a “Kapamilya,” or you watch GMA-7 as a “Kapuso.”

   Claude Lévi-Strauss proposes that the dichotomy - the binary opposition - is a paradox reflected in myth [2]: it is, by nature and by application, contradictory.  If you’re not alive, you’re dead; if the color is not black, it is white; and if you’re not “Kapuso,” you’re “Kapamilya.”  Disregarding Jacques Derrida’s concept of différance for now, all binary oppositions take as a given that one must take primacy over another.  What the corporate broadcast media elites are doing right now is to take primacy: that one has a better quality of programming than the other network, that one has better ratings than the other network.

Ratings as propaganda

   Ratings themselves are irrelevant to average viewers.  Ideally, ratings are supposed to be confidential statistical presentations that should be used by networks to improve their programs.  However, ratings have been successfully used by both networks as a tool to legitimate their viewers’ statuses as “Kapamilya” or “Kapuso.”

   Both networks, in their respective TV ads [3], claim that this issue is not about who’s first or who’s second: this is merely about “the truth.”  “The truth” is rather obvious at this point: it is a matter of personal preference, and all Filipinos switch channels at one point or another in any given time of day.  A die-hard “Kapamilya” or “Kapuso” - that is to say a household that is always tuned to ABS-CBN or GMA-7 - is extremely hard to come by, and I might as well stick my neck out in saying that such a household doesn’t exist.

   The corporate broadcast media elites, however, have succeeded in saying otherwise.  You won’t tire of hearing “number one” being blurted out in television shows and ads for television shows.  Ratings, like any statistical exercise, are broad overviews: they will always have blind spots [4].

   More importantly, ratings do not measure the quality of programming or the strength of television signals: the truth is, they validate or repudiate the marketing strategy and the effect of network propaganda in a given area.  It does not have to be fair or it doesn’t have to be fought on a level playing field, as much as it only has to be effective.  This is where ABS-CBN is winning the battle for cable dominance, and why GMA-7 is broadcasting a hotline number for SkyCable-related complaints in the news tickers for “24 Oras.”

The denial of choice: “The truth” and its consequences

   So if ratings don’t measure quality programming, what does?  Short answer: it’s a matter of personal preference.  “Quality” means so many things to different people, which is why ABS-CBN and GMA-7 continue to struggle over this.  More and more people are shifting over to cable programming because of the poor quality of free TV programs.

   But for the bulk of the Filipino people who rely upon aerials, cable is not an option.  The most successful polarization in local free TV today is on the noontime gameshows “Eat Bulaga” and “Wowowee,” where both Joey de Leon and Willie Revillame have been venerated without understanding.  Where Willie is seen as a savior by many of the poor, he is seen as a cheater by Joey.  All of a sudden, it no longer matters to the people if you would go to EDSA to decry your disappointment with the government and demand change: it becomes more important to choose between Willie or Joey.

   The ratings war took this to a whole different level: an average viewer is presented with a choice between ABS-CBN or GMA-7, or suffer the consequences.  A respected journalist like Sandra Aguinaldo, for example, is at the center of GMA-7’s reportage on tampered ratings: instead of being the well-respected documentarist that she is, she has become GMA-7’s nighttime mouthpiece for the most publicized libel suit in Philippine history.

   Domination is at the center of the Oedipal figure in the thought of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari [5]: Oedipus colonizes its members, represses desires, and organizes them so much so that they behave in a controlled fashion.  The Oedipal figures of “Kapamilya” and “Kapuso” has structured us so much that even the potential to switch channels is repressed, discouraged, and annihilated: our viewing habits controlled not according to our own needs and desires, but to what is profitable for, and beneficial to, their interests.

   As Oedipal figures, “Kapamilya” and “Kapuso” link us into seemingly inexonerable, permanent associations with TV networks: with the caveat of the prefix “ka.”  Oedipal complexes are triangulated: Daddy-Mommy-Me.  The two big TV networks don’t: its me and ABS-CBN, me and GMA-7.  This is a vertical relationship: a relationship of subjugation and of control.  A free TV viewer is left with absolutely no choice but to watch, to be dominated, to be controlled.

   They have succeeded at this point to be at the absolute extreme of the Oedipus Complex: our lives as a people are now revolving around free TV.

“You have nothing to lose but your chains!” 

   This is the battlecry of Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto: I’m not saying that we should tread the path towards Communism, but I’m saying that we should all be wary of the dominance-and-control agenda of the corporate broadcast media elites.  The imperative is not just resistance, but outright rejection.  You do not resist Oedipus: you reject it.

   My case against Filipino free TV is to reject it outright: to reject domination, to reject control.  We should reclaim our inalienable right to free choice.  Cable and satellite must be made readily available for the populace, so as to grant them more options in the way of quality programming.  Networks like IBC-13, RPN-9, and ABC-5 should improve their signals and churn out quality programming instead of home TV shopping shows.

   But the legitimate threat to the Oedipal oligopoly that is ABS-CBN and GMA-7 is the viewer: I urge you to stop watching their programs.  Do not allow yourselves to be controlled by their sloganeering and their self-serving advertisements.  And if you are forced to watch their programs, remain critical: have a good, solid idea of what you want to watch, and compare that idea to their programming.  Do not be swayed by their promotions and their ads: reject being a “Kapamilya” or a “Kapuso,” and remain who you are to the very end.

   It is not the ratings that are tampered.  The people have been tampered.

Notes

[1] See Taylor’s essay, entitled “Self-Interpreting Animals,” in Philosophical Papers I: Human Agency and Language, 1985 Cambridge University Press
[2] Lévi-Strauss, The Raw and the Cooked, 1970 Harper and Row
[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHod3-G5I6g
[4] “Disputes in statistical analyses,” http://www.informath.org/StatDis.pdf
[5] Deleuze and Guattari, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, 1983 University of Minnesota Press

   In a report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) entitled “Wowowee and the Women of 200 P. de la Cruz St.” (PCIJ iREPORT, March-June 2006; this article is also accessible here), Sheila Coronel writes:

The poor are a willing and captive audience of television.  In fact, poor people watch free television more, if only because they have few other alternative distractions.  In some poor households, the TV is on 16 or 18 hours a day.  The better off have cable TV, DVDs, and cinemas.  They visit malls, travel elsewhere during their vacations, eat out in restaurants, and look for nighttime entertainment in theaters and clubs.  The poor watch TV all day and all night. 

   It’s a small wonder why GMA-7 and ABS-CBN will fight like Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees not over the matter of killing a camp counselor, but denying the Filipino audience out of the freedom to choose.

   I’ve made my choice: screw them.

   For the past few weeks, both stations have been running long advertisements on tampered ratings: whether it’s on “24 Oras” or “TV Patrol World,” “Saksi” or “Bandila,” TV ratings are headline stories.  The two biggest free TV stations of the Philippines are demanding your undivided attention, ladies and gentlemen.  The media has polarized the country yet again into being either a “Kapuso” or “Kapamilya.”  It’s either you’re with them, or you’re against them.  This is nothing short of fascism: the kind of “us-against-them” mentality that threatens our freedom to choose.

   I made a decision today to quit watching free TV.  I’m boycotting free TV: I will no longer watch ABS-CBN or GMA-7.

   Tomorrow, I’m posting a manifesto.

   Author’s note: this piece was written in Original TMX.  In these times of protracted word wars between television stations, this experiment - once again - says my peace.

MEDIA CONFIDENTIAL

Originally posted May 21, 2007

< gonna be quite long >

   Sometimes I wonder if my experiences as a campus journalist ever amounted to me being “part of the media,” or if I ever was a “media man.”  I’ve had my fair share of “media experiences” like interviewing the likes of Erap Estrada (the former President) and Bojo Molina (who is unknown to many who haven’t watched “F.L.A.M.E.S” or “The Mariano Mison Story”), covering everything from demolitions to worker’s strikes to student rallies.  My friends say that most student journalists can’t hold their candles to me.  To me, it wasn’t about me being “a good journalist,” but it was a matter of holding the same job for 11 years, despite having had a conflicted past with it.

   But one thing was that in spite of my differences with my paper and the media in general, I’ve always defended it.  To me, the media represents the actualization of freedom of speech and the right to free expression.  The mistakes of the media are “human” mistakes, and there’s nothing and old-fashioned erratum can correct.  I was all for de-criminalizing libel.  I thought that a newscaster is just doing the job expected of him/her.  I thought that there was nothing wrong with the freest press in Asia.

   But after a much-needed break from the grind, I realized that I thought wrong.  Thinking that the media - mainstream or alternative - presented the “realities of life” was undoubtedly part of a “false consciousness” I fostered for myself as being part of the media.  This amounted to me revisiting my old conflicts with media and subjecting it to the pains of a dialectic.  I realized that what you see is different from what you experience, and the view of things do change when you see it from a different angle.  It’s not a matter of merely writing an article from a different perspective or viewing a newscast from another channel, but a matter of seeing and understanding media from the strange perspective of being formerly from it, and now being a consumer of it.  From what I though of myself to be a “media practicioner,” I have metamorphosed to being what I think of myself as a “media critic.”

   Politicians and public figures complain about being “victimized” by the media, although it is elucidated in very shallow and personal terms.  But I think that “victimization” is not something exclusive to a politician or a celebrity, but is something that is inclusive to the public in general.  The way I see it, people are silent victims of the media.  Presented with no other alternatives to major networks, broadsheets and tabloid journalism, consumers - in this case “customers” - of mainstream and “alternative” media outfits and enterprises are forced to consume a general media product that belittles their intelligence and disregards their agency.  transforms the public into passive and willing victims of the path to enforced and institutionalized intellectual degeneration, moral degradation, and outright dishonesty.

   The views in this entry are strictly my views and do not reflect the views of other organizations, individuals and such.  Criticism of all kinds - constructive, personal, degrading - are welcome.

*      *      *

Introduction: Coronel’s “idiotization” thesis

   Shiela Coronel of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) mentions of the “idiotization” of Philippine news.  It’s very evident in primetime news programs, where anchors act like hectoring demagogues, where the reportage largely consists of police reports and crime stories, and so on and so forth.  To news executives, they merely “report the news as it is,” that what is being reported is merely a reflection of what’s going on in society.  But rather than elevate the level of discourse in Philippine news, the level degenerates.  In effect, the viewer is treated like, well, an idiot, force-fed crime stories, showbiz scoops and political scandals.

   When I first read Coronel’s article a few months ago, I thought that she was a bit “biased” and that her claims are largely founded on statistical evidence, which is something I’m not very keen on.  But the more I watch TV news, the more I realize that there is merit to the “idiotization” thesis.  It is something pervasive in Philippine media, a syndrome, if you will.

   “Syndrome” is a light word, something that pertains to a brief attack of something periodic.  But the idiotization of media - in this case Philippine media - is something that goes beyond something like a social “influenza.”  The degree by which we, the people, are turned into passive idiots is something that not only makes us sick, but makes us immune as well.  It’s more like a plague.

*  *  *

An example

   Let’s start with a microcosm.  Back when I was a practicing campus journalist, I have always been told that “to write is already to choose.”  This means that a journalist should not and cannot attain absolute objectivity in reporting the news: the mere fact that he/she chooses who to interview, where to get sources and how to write the article is itself an affirmation of bias.  It, however, was a choice: you have to choose your bias.  Almost everyone in the school paper professed being biased “to the students” or “to the people,” but I didn’t believe this.  To me, the paper is a public service and a public trust: because a journalist does public service he/she must state publicly where he/she is coming from.  Part of good editorial policy should be that at the beginning of a new editorial term, the paper should make clear its objectives and thrusts for the term and state its biases clearly and publicly.  This was not “suicide,” as my co-editors termed it, but it was a matter of keeping things honest and on the level.  This means that the reading public knows the standpoint and viewpoint the paper is coming from for every article or editorial piece it publishes.

   What I “preached” in the school paper’s newsroom, though, wasn’t something readily accepted.  Many of the arguments that led me to resign from the paper were caused by this rift between conflicting journalistic philosophies.  While they argued along the lines of “editorial independence,” I made it clear that the political and ideological affiliations and leanings of its members (myself included) did not make complete “editorial independence” possible.  While they hired apprentices and new staff members on the basis of their receptiveness to and acceptance of educational discussions and their political work, I worked only with those who were already experienced or demonstrate a satisfactory capacity to handle the job.  But beyond that was a difference in how to handle bias: to them, it was important to continue a tradition of “alternative journalism,” to report the news the mainstream media does not report on and to be the “voice of the oppressed.”  I was all for tradition and voicing out the concerns of the oppressed: what I wanted, though, was for these to be made explicit to the reading public.  It was not a matter of a militant editorial term taking in the opinions of non-militants to “balance out” the school paper as proposed by many readers.  Instead, the paper should make it clear from the very beginning where it’s coming from, what ideology it adheres to, what causes it supports and what direction it’s going to take.

*  *  *

Media’s business end

   But then again, that’s the theoretical ideal.  I now know why my seniors and my superiors protested against my ideas from the get-go: media is not just about “public service” as I always thought, but it’s also primarily a business.  It’s not just a matter of monetary profit, but a matter of social profit as well.  Stating your biases publicly is fine, for so long as it doesn’t hurt the business end of your outfit.  “Informing the public” is not as simple as it sounds.  Being a source of information, you have to pick your information.  It’s a lot like picking grapes for wine: you don’t drop the whole bunch in.  Instead, you select the biggest, juiciest and the most flavorful ones.  The business end of the media is not about protecting the interests of the reader, but protecting the interests of the business.

   You have to have an established network that supports the business end of your outfit.  In a school paper, for example, your support network is not composed of the students who mandatorily pay for school paper fees, but from the organizations and supporters that protect you from the flak that you’re going to get left and right everytime you publish something that will rouse doubt on the “objectivity” demanded of you.  You can proclaim “editorial independence” or stand by the assertion that you are an “institution,” but that’s simply not enough.  From the get-go, it is imperative to build alliances with organizations and umbrella alliances that will not only defend you from impending flak for your stands and actions, but also a reader base.  People have to read you: if they don’t, you’re dead.  No readers mean no new alliances.  No new alliances means no support.  No support means no paper.  It’s that simple.

   Earlier, I likened the editorial process to picking grapes for wine.  There’s another apsect to that: you can’t make wine that everybody likes.  It’s the same thing with a newspaper: you can’t make articles that everybody likes.  This will confound many people: just how exactly do you get the job done if you can’t please everybody?  It’s quite simple, really.  You have a support base in those who read you, so you cater to this support base.  You don’t have to make articles everybody likes, you only have to make articles your support network likes.  You don’t please everybody: instead, you please the people who are pleased with you and who you are pleased with.  This is not technically “alienating” the reading public, because there’s really no one to alienate.  Those who don’t read you - either by virtue of ignorance or because they protest your editorial standpoint by “boycotting” you - are not, strictly speaking, your readers.  You don’t have to make articles for them, you only have to make articles for your network.  You publish articles for those who are sympathetic to your cause, but at the same time and in effect, you publish articles that are sympathetic to their cause.  It’s not a mere matter of “exchange” or “reciprocity,” but it’s a matter of business.  In business, you and your customer have to think alike, you have to reach a point of congruence.  In business, congruence makes deals materialize - it’s a matter of cinching a deal because you know there’s a deal coming, not because you merely “expect” a deal.  You don’t “converge,” since with that arrangement, something has to give.  If you buckle, no paper.  Again, it’s that simple.

   Some may think that an arrangement like this is “corrupt.”  Ethically, yes, it’s definitely corrupt that it’s nauseating.  But politically, it’s not.  People talk about “media ethics” a lot nowadays, but there’s also such a thing as “media politics.”  Politics is grounded on the survival imperative.  Biologically, you can’t survive without food for four months and without water for three days.  But in society, you can’t survive without having a hold on the politics of things.  Politics has often been called “the economics of social survival” for good reason: it’s all a matter of investment and return.  The social “stock market” is about investing in the right people and you get good returns if you play the game well.  Media is not all that different: people invest in you, in return you invest in them, and this cycle of investments continue on for so long as you both reap the benefits of the investment.  This creates bonds forged and strengthened by time and more and more investments.  If the bond goes up, you both go up.  If the bond goes down, you both go down.  It’s all a matter of protecting mutual interests - it’s called “shareholding.”  Yes, it definitely looks and sounds very, very familiar.  It’s a game of survival: if a paper doesn’t survive, it’s dead.  Yet again, it’s that simple.

   At this point, at least, we have a clue to why primetime news shows so much crime stories, why newspapers are so politically inclined, why certain advertisers choose this network over another, and why many school papers are in reality not “independent.”  And like many things that I hold strong opinions of, this is definitely going to hurt.

*  *  *

The newscaster as a hectoring demagogue

   In the case of primetime news, it’s all about ratings.  Had we taken the logic of news executives that they report things “the way they are” with a less-than-critical mind, the streets should be so full of vehicular crashes, the jails should be so jam-packed with petty thieves and rapists, that our major cities are raging infernos of sheer doom and terror, and that at every waking moment there’s a 100% chance that we’ll be robbed at knifepoint, hostaged in a bus, raped by our stepfathers, killed by a gunman, or commit suicide in the confines of our very own homes.  The thing is, the big networks don’t report what’s really going on, but report the news they deem profitable to their demographic: the C, D and E classes who have their TV’s turned on for 18 hours a day, looking for some measure of suspense and action to spice up their otherwise boring and uneventful lives.  The lower class does not understand the many socio-economic implications of the fluctuating performance of the Philippine economy or the ramifications of Paul Wolfowitz resigning from the World Bank after nepotism charges were filed against him.  Instead, they understand the polarizing and simplifying effects of elementary dichotomies like good and evil, police and criminal, fire and firefighter, hostage-taker and negotiator, and so on.

   This is what “sells” to the primetime audience, who understand convoluted soap opera storylines and inanities in “reality TV” shows, but demonstrate an inadequate understanding of their roles and responsibilities in building a society grounded on the principles of social justice, rights and equity: the antitheses of which are broadcasted on TV in the form of “poll fraud” allegations, paraphilic rapes and “public service announcements” involving the network’s “foundation” literally peddling and hawking scenes of poverty and disability to every TV in the nation just so that they can say that they are “for real” in the lame over-dramatization that passes for their brand of “public service.”  You don’t see commentary and debate on primetime news, but you see “reports” on the next “wholesome girl” to land a “sexy pictorial” with some men’s magazine or some “funny” feature story about a strange frog.  Rather than conscienticize the public about the real situation of divisiveness in the nation, the networks have effectively re-divided the nation between who’s part of the network’s family, who’s in the network’s heart, and who watches government officials prattle on about the accomplishments of this “Strong Republic” that has sustained compound fractures on every single bone of its body.

   What would have been acceptable, in this case, is for the networks to admit where they’re coming from.  We - in this case I - cannot and will not settle for vague, poetic and metaphorical abstractions of things that don’t sound like an open declaration of bias.  After all, it’s bad for business: “bias” is a four-letter word.  But what’s good for business is bad for the public consciousness: the choice for sources of news is limited because it’s profitable to keep it limited.  When the other network goes on commercial, you go on commercial too, to compete with revenues.

   Broadcasting interns, who of all people should have a better knowledge of modern practices of journalism than the antiquated method of applying the style of radio to television and vice versa - start to report like they’re covering the police beat all the time.  And for what?  Ratings.  You don’t report the news in order to inform the public anymore, but you beat the other reporters to the source of the news and have an “exclusive.”  Then you shove the damned microphone right on the face of the grieving mother of the victim or ambush the politican-in-question while he/she is entering his/her car.  You could have told me before that that was the way you’re going to do the news.  But you won’t, because it’s bad for business.

*  *  *

Newspapers: the freehold?

   The abomination that is primetime news makes me more of a newspaper guy, but sometimes, I just don’t get it anymore.  Everytime I pick up a newspaper nowadays I’m not spared from the same force-feeding of information in primetime news, especially with tabloids.  Sure, they’re cheap, but I don’t have to read the graphic descriptions of a 70-year-old grandmother getting run over by a semi truck while I’m having my coffee.  Heck, I don’t even have to read the tabloid version of last night’s rape story in all of its graphic detail, more so those serialized sex stories that would actually induce, or at least fuel the thought, of the damned sex crimes so prevalent in primetime TV news.  Worse, reading a tabloid is like getting showbiz bits intravenously fed to you: blind items are easier to solve than brain-wracking Sunday Sudoku puzzles, and you’ll definitely be the first to know of celebrity closet queens and sex scandal royalty.

   Well, there’s always the broadsheet, right?  Well, not really: the major broadsheets of the country will never declare their political biases to the public and leave that to the monotony of topics in their opinion pages and the monotony of their news, in the hope that the implication is much less dangerous than the explication (which is often not the case).  And yes, there’s an entire section for the chaos of Metro Manila while the rest of the nation is covered by one-paragraph newsbriefs.  Everyday, it’s the same thing: not because it’s a slow news day, but because it’s what’s profitable for their interests.  The way I see it, you can classify the major broadsheets in the country can be divided into three: those who are against the government but don’t explicate it in the interest of keeping its advertisers and perpetuating its agenda, those who serve the purpose of being the other paper’s competitor and runs the same stories as them only re-worded and rephrased to protect their own business interests, and those who tread the path of “objectivity” to the dot that they publish useless news and “praise releases” for politicians but make good profits in classified ads.  I’ll leave that to you, since there are three major broadsheets in the Philippines today and it’s pretty easy to guess just what is what.

   So you don’t like tabloids, you don’t like broadsheets, and you happen to be a college student in a state university that prides itself on “academic freedom.”  Well, you’ve got a paper rich in history and tradition, but full of all the crap that you’re going to have to stomach because you pay for it in advance and you have no choice.  Yes, they are as “objective” as an executioner on the day of a beheading, but the staff is at the very front row of a rally: which is the best place to “cover” a “violent dispersal” or a “show of force” of a couple of dozen students.  We make mistakes, but we can always apologize for them next month: be it a misspelling of a name, a factual error, or a bigoted slur that didn’t really mean or imply anything anything offensive but really meant, hmmm, let’s see, a “bundle of sticks.”  It will always be a slow news day on campus: nothing (and I mean nothing) is more important than the “big issues” that have never changed since the 1970’s, since time immemorial - imperialism, capitalism, and our inalienable right as journalists to stay on campus on off-hours - and we will use the same analysis and the same course of action because history repeats itself, even if it’s the 21st century and the envelope of ideas and courses of action have expanded to allow other ideas to come in.  But our ideas are better because we’re much more “scientific” and “objective” in our analysis: the mere fact that our ideas and courses are action are completely congruent, practically similar and totally alike to the ideas and courses of action of another political party is completely and totally coincidental.

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Conclusion: Never that simple

   Well, I said it was going to hurt… don’t say I didn’t warn you.

   These opinions aren’t completely unique, though: many people share the same opinions about the Philippine news media, but the problem is few people actually “complain,” much less do something about it.  It’s not about passive and ready acceptance of the way things are, but it has been a constant process of turning and rendering people passive, accepting things for the way they are.  It’s “idiotization:” it’s not an instantaneous transformation of a reader or a viewer into what passes for an idiot.  Instead, it’s a process: it doesn’t take too long, you just bombard the populace with racy tabloids in the morning and have them watch the primetime news in the evening.  You do this enough and you’ll have a nation that has been desensitized to the effects of everything, from tragedy to social obligations to the state of their lives in general.  After all, it’s in the news.  You can’t argue with facts.  Since the news are made up of facts, you can’t argue with the news.

   I’m not a journalist, nor have I been schooled in “actual” journalism: some of my claims here would probably be dismissed as “delusional” interpretations of what I see in TV or what I read in the papers, or from my own experiences as a writer.  But like I said earlier, many people share the same opinions about the Philippine news media.  The reason why we act so passively and we seem so “ready” to literally ingest the news is because we have no choice.  “Truthfulness” and “fairness” in reporting goes beyond the “objectivity” that there is in reporting the news or the “sexiness” factor that comes with marketing the news product: it is being truthful and fair about what the product is.  Being in the media you have the power over what information the general public knows, but you have the responsibility of ensuring these people the right to know.  And in that sense, you don’t keep a secret from the public.

   Granted, you can’t publish or show everything, but you have to keep things honest.  Good media practicioners are upfront about what advocacies they support, what business interests they have and where they stand.  They don’t claim to be objective if they’re obviously not: news is about calling a spade a spade.  They don’t report news items that would make a quick sale in the newsstands or go through these overwrought and overspent material that makes a person tired of reading or watching the news, the news is instead accurate, timely, truthful and fair.  If you can’t present the two sides of a story, say so.  It’s that simple.

   Of course, in media, things were never “that simple.”  If it was, our problems wouldn’t have been this complicated.

   I’ve been browsing some online forums (like this one and this one) and thought about baboons on the forest canopy: after a feed of bananas, some of them stoop down low to the forest floor to throw feces at other baboons.  Yup, between “Kapamilya” and “Kapuso,” you better strap on your seatbelts for civil war… or maybe take a side and throw feces, too.

   As a TV viewer, ratings do not concern me.  I don’t give… feces… about ratings.  What matters more to me is quality programming: the sad thing is that I often find that not in free local TV, but in cable channels.  I don’t know why our free TV channels are squabbling over ratings when their TV shows leave much to be desired.  On the one hand, you have broadcasts of sanctimonious TV current affairs reporting exemplified by graphic footage of bad chicharon on a Saturday dinner (GMA-7).  On the other hand, you have broadcasts of brain-dead reality TV contests revolving around graphic footage of drunken behavior (ABS-CBN).

   And then they squabbled on live TV on the matter of ratings.  I say, the hell with it.

   Really, it forces the question: is it about viewers, or is it about viewing habits?  Whatever happened to free, accessible information when you’re forced to have two choices?  Has it become a compulsory choice between two channels?

   It makes me kind of wonder: since when did I have room in TV executive boardrooms, as a viewer demanding quality TV?  They don’t call TV the “idiot box” for nothing: the viewer is effectively an idiot when it comes to the limited and forced choices he or she has for TV programs.  It’s a good thing we have cable: at least I don’t have to choose between two sucky, perverse, gratuitous noontime game shows that sow the seeds of indolence in all 7,107 islands of the Philippines that have aerials.  At least I don’t have to look forward to barbs being traded on weekend showbiz shows.

   But why bother?  TV executives don’t care about viewers.  They care about ratings, they care more about the other station than the TV audience.  It is propaganda at work: the hell with what people think or what people need, but what TV executives want the people to think, or what they want the people to need.  This is the reason why in any given sample of Filipino homes, the TV is on for 18 hours a day.  We are, for all intents and purposes of the phrase, a nation of idiots.

   The last straw came when another freaking YouTube video on the Wilyonaryo scam surfaced in the forums.  And so what in the blue hell does this - and the ratings scams - mean to me?  Short answer: nothing.  It never meant anything to me, because they were all obsessed by the ratings.

   I’ll tell you what you can do with those ratings: shove ‘em.  Don’t rate me anymore: don’t call me your lover, your family, your friend, whatever.

   Whatever.

   My theory is that if you pull off WWE programming from Philippine television, the masses will finally be convinced of corruption and oppression and they will rise up in revolution.  As such, it becomes painfully obvious that the next big step in Pinoy copycat programming is not the televised horse-afflicted-with-HIV-semen that is “Zaido” (I’m entitled to my opinion), but Filipino-style professional wrestling.  I don’t know where exactly I watched it, but there used to be a Filipino wrestling promotion in the 1980s.  I say, bring it back.

   I am definitely on high spirits following the RAW 15th anniversary special (and man, did Sunny look HOT indeed), and I have it all figured out: the ratings will be huge if GMA-7 or ABS-CBN-2 (heck, even IBC-13) if they showed an all-Filipino wrestling promotion.  To hell with the moralistic debates on whether or not wrestling corrupts the minds of the youth, or if Joey de Leon would be his usual sanctimonious self when he castigates Filipino wrestling on “Startalk.”

   There are a few things right about a Pinoy celebrity wrestling promotion:

• Our soap opera plotlines are so convoluted that we can accommodate everything from bastard children to love triangles.
• We have so many celebrity sex scandals that the idea of a Lingerie Pudding Match is enough to boost the ratings.
• The bloodlust between GMA-7 and ABS-CBN-2 talent is enough for a 10-man elimination tag match a’la Survivor Series.
• We can hold a 30-man Battle Royal featuring all the Magdalo mutineers.
• Manny Pacquiao can try his hand in challenging his critics not in a boxing fight, but in Hell in a Cell.
• We can settle the feud between Willie Revillame and Joey de Leon in Last Man Standing, with the stipulation that the loser retires and leaves the entertainment industry forever.
• Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr. versus OMB Chairman Edu Manzano is a good main-event draw.
• We determine who’s the better Zaido in a triple-threat match.
• Lolit Solis doesn’t have to go to court because she’ll be facing off against Piolo Pascual.

   Keeping abreast of the latest celebrity news is one of those things that keep The Marocharim Experiment going.  Last night at “Pinoy Big Brother Celebrity Edition 2,” Baron Geisler got drunk: apparently, the presence of alcohol at the Big Brother House was too much for Baron - a recovering alcoholic - to bear.

   I don’t know why the producers of PBBCE2 set up a place to drink.  Maybe the creative team had this brain-dead idea: “Hey, why don’t we put up a bar, and let’s see how the Housemates get drunk and get wasted.”  It’s funny at first, but eventually you have to take a long, hard look at Baron and admit to yourself: “Hey, this guy needs help.  What’s he doing in a reality show?”

   Step One of Alcoholics Anonymous sounds simple, but it’s far more complicated: admit you have a problem, that alcohol is ruling your life.  Understand that, and you’ll understand a bit more about the whole philosophy of AA, which is “One day at a time.”  It doesn’t matter if Baron was sober for two months or two centuries: once alcohol got a grip of you, it won’t let go.  There’s no such thing as a “cure” for alcoholism.

   I can’t help but have my heart go out to Baron: here’s a guy who is consumed by his excesses and addictions.  Here’s a guy who almost gave up a phone call to his mom for a measly pack of cigarettes.  But the alcoholism is something that hits hard: I had my own problems holding down my liquor before.  You can’t help but think why a reality show masquerading as a halfway house would have a 24-hour camera showing you how low people go whenever they get drunk.  I can understand an athlete like Gaby de la Merced, but Baron is (and I can’t emphasize this enough) a recovering alcoholic.  There’s just no way you can pass this off as a mere “challenge.”

   But that’s just it: another ploy at ratings.  I don’t know what’s going on in Donnie Geisler’s mind right now, much less their mother.  It’s hard to look at that drunken episode without understanding the effects of alcohol.

   I say it’s high time Baron was evicted from the Big Brother house.

   I was thinking about many ways to earn P20,000 courtesy of the “Extreme Papaya” contest in “Pilipinas: Game KNB?”  I’ve narrowed my long list to three options.  I could do any one of the following for P20,000:

• Fire Papaya: Set myself on fire dancing “Papaya;”
• Chicken Papaya: Have a chicken dance the “Papaya;”
• Sex Papaya: Do the “Papaya” while having sex.

   They’ve done everything with Urszula Dudziak’s “Papaya:” the Silent Drill team of the Philippine Military Academy just did the “Papaya” for their routine, inmates in a Visayas prison just won P20,000 for doing the “Papaya.”  It begs the question: how extreme can “Papaya” get?  Boy, Edu Manzano didn’t know what he unleashed upon the world.

   “Fire Papaya” is, for all intents and purposes, extreme.  I’m not talking about Rachel Lobangco’s Micronesian fire-dances: I’m talking about dousing yourself in gasoline, setting yourself ablaze, and do the requisite dance steps of the “Papaya.”  Now that’s work P20,000.

   As far as “Chicken Papaya” goes, I had some problems trying to narrow down my list of animals that could dance the “Papaya.”  I thought about dogs, but that’s too obvious.  Cats, too, are obvious choices.  My list included horses, worms, snakes, butterflies, cows.  Pigs are cute, but they can’t dance.  Sheep, maybe, but that’s even cuter.  Now chickens dancing the “Papaya…” now that’s an idea.  After all, both fowl and fruit have to establish a good rapport by the time they get dunked into the pot for a tinola dinner.  Besides, “Fish Papaya” is a bit, well, gross.  Especially when you actually have to eat it.

   Which brings me to the best/worst idea for an “Extreme Papaya” video: why not do it while having sex?  All 45 positions of the Kamasutra are possible take-off points for dancing the “Papaya:” you can take any sexual position and dance the “Papaya.”  Why stop there: why not have a 30-person orgy and do the “Papaya” in the middle of mass orgasm?  Again, don’t get me started.