Fernando Modesto, Untitled, Pastel on Paper, 109 x 73 cms., 1984. Kulay-Diwa Gallery of Philippine Contemporary Art. Rightclicked and downloaded with express permission (thanks much!) from the webmaster at www.kulay-diwa.com
This comment made me laugh aloud today, (ha-ha-ha-ha, sobra) (soweee), from a viewer, a comment on the show “Harapan” (Face-to-face)
From stuart-santiago: you didn’t miss anything worth hearing. it was an awful show. if i were jun lozada i would have walked out and left korina and ricky to their own pathetic devices.
Dear stuart-santiago,
This made me laugh. I plugged the show ten hours before it was shown, so i thought i was obliged to say something lest people think i had endorsed it. So i just said i didn’t have any comment (go figure, ha-ha); although it’s true i just caught the tailend; actually half. (friends who know me know, when i say “no comment”, or when i don’t comment, i either think the question isn’t worth getting engaged in or i’m being polite; i shouldn’t even be in the internet! Yeah i know. Duh.) Here it is: IT WAS A GODDAMNED GAME SHOW-TRADING-OF-BARBS SHOW. (How’s that for being polite, ha-ha). Questions like “Sa inyo bang tingin o opinyon si FG ay kasangkot, etc?” (In your view or opinion is FG involved, etc.), and similar questions like, “Ikaw ba ay isang bayani? Bakit? (Are you a hero? Why?), or “Ano ba ang inyong mga pananaw sa korupsyon? Ito ba ay hindi na bago? (What are your views about corruption? Is this not new anymore?), that just let the guests throw around and toss recycled exhortations, denials, counter-accusations, and nothing more and nothing new, made the show a contest of opinions and the height of inanity, especially for a witness like Jun Lozada who almost got killed, his kids cannot go to school now for chrissake, and you make him jump hoops in a three-ringed circus, gosh. (The Sunday Mass held at La Salle, Greenhills is the saving grace of the week). It should have just been a one-on-one between Ben Abalos and Jun Lozada where the questions would elicit from the two a common timeline, a common set of events, the golf and power breakfasts, the trips to China, the wining and dining, then go into those, get details, what they ate, who sat where, etc., it only becomes real when there are details (that’s what journalists do for godssake), just like Jun Lozada’s narration fresh from the traumatic experience; it’s the details that make people realize the bacchanalia that Gloria, FG, Ben Abalos, and their cabal are engorged in on contracts and taxpayers’ money (i’ll let you in on a secret, it’s the details that in 2000-2001 made people see the Estrada gov’t and midnight cabinet for what they were), (then, for TV, i would have put graphics and visuals for the timeline and events) leading up to airport incident, so that we could reconstruct what really happened and this time it’s something new because Ben Abalos is there and who knows what else you could squeeze from the witness Jun Lozada everytime he remembers something (some witnesses take days of interviews to remember details spanning one year) . I know that would require a lot of skills but the alternative is song-and-dance like what we saw. You’re right, i agree, if i were Jun Lozada, i would have walked out. That’s where you see the character of the person. Mabait syang tao. (He’s a kind man). It’s like, his layers have been peeled off and he’s willing to endure all of the utter senselessness of TV. (i shouldn’t have written that, i know, but i thought i’d let witnesses like Jun Lozada and his family and friends know). To the letter-sender: i’m glad you wrote in, thank you!
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allow me to share an updated version of my blogpost today:
“harapan” nina korina’t ricky: HARANG!
anc’s korina sanchez and ricky carandang roundly deserved the put-down by sister mary john mananzan, o.s.b. [order of st. benedict; she taught us religion and history in high school] when she minced no words and declared UNFAIR the way they had set up the show so that the promised lozada-abalos face-off turned out to be a forum for abalos and panelo and razon and formoso and dee to launch a sustained attack on lozada without giving the guy equal time each time to respond. UNFAIR talaga. mabuhay! si sister mary john who was so incensed, she was prepared to give up her time on cam in favor of lozada.
what were korina and ricky thinking? sa halip na maliwanagan ang bayan, lalo lang nilang ginulo! what a waste of valuable time and what a waste of a nationwide captive audience who was expecting NOT a rehash, nay, a parody, of the senate investigation, complete with insultuhan at taasan ng boses, but rather who was expecting and wanting to be clarified, affirmed, enlightened.
what were korina and ricky thinking? can it be that they themselves don’t believe jun lozada and didn’t think he deserved ample time to answer the brickbats thrown at him? or were they just being their commercial selves, trying to get as many sensational soundbites out of as many talking heads as possible, treating the audience as though we were children with short attention spans? or maybe they’re just hedging their bets, in case gma and her cohorts prevail?
this is the problem with media’s attitude that their job is only to inform, that is, to report or give voice to both sides of an issue, but not to sway us one way or another. not for them to take sides. not for them to advocate anything except freedom of the press, never mind what they do or don’t do with that freedom. all they seem to be capable of is skepticism. which is really a cop-out, a way out for people who don’t have a real grasp of issues and therefore do not have the confidence and the nerve to take a stand. which is no way to serve the nation.
if they truly wanted to serve the nation, korina and ricky should have done a definitive recap of the aborted nbn-zte deal, starting with jarius bondoc’s and joey de venecia’s testimonies on to romulo neri’s and jun lozada’s. objective pa rin yan, di ba? then maybe korina herself would be clearer about benjamin abalos’ sordid role in the whole shebang. instead, they allowed abalos to repeat himself ad nauseam on hamburjer worth dying for, now how idiotic is that!
pasalamat sila na hindi sila pinahiya ni jun lozada by walking out on the show even if he had every reason to. what a guy. what a class act.
as for korina and ricky, i do believe they owe jun lozada a proper apology.
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Dear stuart-santiago,
I would be happy if “news hosts”, in interviewing witnesses and those are are ascribed with wrongdoing, asked questions that elicited facts instead of repetitive denials and exhortations. No, i don’t require “news hosts” to take a stand; no, the problem is not the role of media in informing its audience because the show did not even meet that minimum; no, i don’t want reporters to try to sway the public in one direction; no, i don’t want reporters to tryto advocate anything; and no, skepticism is not a “cop-out”, i still expect journalists to doubt everything and not to readily believe anyone; and the method for that, for example, is a series of quick, follow-up questions to elicit specifics. Thanks for writing!
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the thorough surfing of the net regarding these issues led me to your blogsite… i’m a nephew of Jun Lozada, and I thank you for your genuine concern for this country by following these events…
GMA 7 was calling up my dad (my dad was the guy who filed the Writ of Amparo, and the same guy whom my uncle had called upon his arrival from Hong Kong) when Harapan went on air. Of course they would be furious because ABS-CBN had ratings all for themselves. But as it turns out, it wasn’t that bad for them, as Harapan turned out to be an extended “1 vs. 100″… My uncle was eager to hear what Abalos would say, and us Lozadas were never taught to back down against anything, basta kaya. He has a good ally with him, truth. No matter how many pawns they throw at him, he’ll stand by his word. It’s just sad to know that these respectable journalists would submit to those kinds of manipulation…
Mike Defensor: “…tatrabahuhin lang naman namin sa media yan eh.”
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