News organizations that use ghouls & ghosts as news subjects: reviews by Maria Angelita, serendipity, papa smurf, cyrusfigueroa, kath turlao
(photo shot by Myra Lambino, this week’s pumpkin-carving party among friends in California)
Media Monitor No. 9 by Maria Angelita
“xxxOctober 26, 2014, Rated K aired their Halloween special entitled, “Rated Shocker”. It featured stories about the occult particularly ghost sightings, demon possessions, third-eyes, and the like. Though it is an entertaining episode, particularly for the horror fans, it is hardly something one could call a fair and accurate news magazine program episode.
“One such example is the first segment of the show which talked about a young boy who allegedly has the ability to see ghosts, demons, and “lost souls”. This ability is otherwise known as “having a third eye”. xxx lack of balanced reporting xxxfocused entirely on the magnificence of the boy’s “powers” by showing how he supposedly played with “dead people” without actually confirming the phenomenon with scientific experts. The only “experts” they got on the subject were a Catholic priest and a parapsychologist, hardly anyone that could give you a rational view of the situation. This is in violation of the KBP Broadcast Code of Ethics, Article 13 which states that a program featuring superstitious and pseudoscientific beliefs must not exploit people who could be easily swayed by such things. By showing one account after the other of the boy’s third-eye adventures without proper guidance of logical expertise, a simple-minded viewer might actually believe that such things actually matter.
“Another issue I have with the episode is the sensationalism of their re-enactments. It’s good that they’ve labeled their re-enactments as such but the images don’t have to be so gory. The ghosts were so bloodied up that it didn’t seem like they were writing for a news magazine program but more for a horror show.
“Of course, it is understandable that this episode in particular is a horror episode but the producers must not forget that their show is under the category of current affairs. They must not sacrifice the sanctity of balanced news for the sake of entertainment.”
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By serendipity
“xxxOctober 26, ABS-CBN News posted a video from Rated K about a white figure resembling a woman seen on cam during the shoot of a paranormal investigation in Tondo, Manila. According to the cameraman, Violan Pardo, he thought he saw the female ghost before he started to shoot.
“However, a videography expert explained that the image might be formed by lights bouncing off from the grills.
“The verification from the videography expert was important to lessen fright among the audience and to avoid inducing any superstitious belief.”
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By papa smurf
“On another episode of TV Patrol Pampanga, the news program covered a jeepney accident in Sta. Rita Pampanga where one of the passengers died and several others were hospitalized. The jeep hit a tree at one in the morning and the local police believe that the driver of the jeep fell asleep while he was driving. The segment then shifted its attention to the residents near the tree who claim that there is a woman who frequents the tree at night. According to one of the residents, there have already been past accidents at the same area where the accident happened. The report consulted with the usual paranormal expert and she claims that there is an angry woman that roams the area. She then adds that as All Saints Day comes closer, it is possible that more accident will occur.
“The issue with the episode is it induces belief in the supernatural. The episode goes through great lengths to connect an accident with the presence of a ghost who haunts the area. The reporter mentions that the accounts of the residents coincide with what the paranormal expert sees. Again, the program became more about entertainment rather than being deliverer of news. It is almost funny how the program spent more time covering the ghost story rather than the accident itself.
“According to the KBP, media practitioners must be careful in covering supernatural events. I think it is safe to assume that TV Patrol Pampanga does not agree with the KBP. This is the second time in two weeks that they featured ghost stories that are not news worthy in any way. The advice and the visions of the paranormal expert are very questionable and yet the program decides to consult with her anyway. TV Patrol Pampanga is guilty of prescribing pseudo-scientific beliefs. TV Patrol Pampanga must stop.”
“Umagang Kay Ganda did a segment about the historical Diplomat Hotel in Baguio City, but they focused about how it was haunted. They stated how a lot of people died in it during World War II, and that their souls are still inhabiting the hotel. They interviewed a student named Jhel, who claims that she saw ghosts in the windows. Chuck Tinte, the journalist, then mentions that the hotel was one of the most haunted places in the Philippines. The segment then moved to scenes when the news team brought a spirit medium into the hotel. She said that she saw several spirits, and there was also footage of her supposedly being possessed by the spirit of a soldier. All these were set to an eerie musical background. This can rattle the viewers and possibly make them believe in the occult. It’s not news, because there are no facts, only beliefs.
“Even though they interviewed a bishop who said not to believe in this, it was only a fraction of the segment. The occult details were given more priority, thus making it seem more important.
“This may also be seen as a mere stunt to get into the Halloween season, since there was no big event that happened at the Diplomat Hotel. It was more like a feature of a haunted place”
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Haunting (Weekly Media Monitor for October 22-28, 2014)
The link to the Oct. 26 episode of “Rated K” can be found here: http://www.iwantv.com.ph/TV/Video/Rated-K/24/58566
“xxxOctober 26, ABS-CBN aired an episode of “Rated K” (a weekly magazine program hosted by Korina Sanchez) which featured various stories about the occult and supposed paranormal events.
Being a magazine program, it is still expected of “Rated K” to be factual and objective in the stories they air. However, in one of the episode’s segments, a child was described to be in possession of the “sixth sense” (see above photo). What’s wrong is that the description makes it seem that the sixth sense does exist, and the segment itself fails to include the side of scientific experts. This is in violation of the KBP Broadcast Code of Ethics, which states that “programs featuring superstitions shall not induce belief in them”.
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By Kath Turlao
“On the morning show of ABS-CBN which is Umagang Kay Ganda, a story regarding an “amaranhid” was featured.
Even before, there is a belief in the Philippines regarding people who rose from death and by which, are termed as the “amaranhid” or “pinoy zombie.”
“According to the KBP Code of ethics, programs must not promote such beliefs and care should be taken to prevent the exploitation of people who may be easily swayed by such superstitious beliefs.
However,the story that the show featured was supporting that this superstition is actually true and that it happened in one of the barrios in our country.
We lost Ate Elaine when she was thirteen years old. She was a blue baby. The doctors said she had a tiny, needle-prick-sized hole in the valve of her heart. Our parents told us later on, in stories during her wake, that the doctor gave her nine years to live. At that time, the medical procedure for the congenital heart condition gave the patient only a 50% chance of survival, at best. My parents did not want her to suffer through the open heart surgery with very little assurance of success. (Nowadays, my siblings tell me that the present technology allows the patient, easily, to live a long and normal life, post- surgery; it came twenty years late).
Ate Elaine’s favorite song, a number she had heard many times in church, was “I believe”, or “I believe… for every drop… of rain that falls…”. For those who are not familiar with the song, it is embedded here; a youtube video also follows the soundcloud pod; click the pod to stop the autoplay)
When she sang it, she put her palms together in a perfect prayer pose and gazed steadily at the space in front of her, she did not move her head or eyes during the rendition, and slowly sang all the lyrics from memory; and then burst into a big smile after the applause around her. She would sing it at the drop of a hat, anytime, anywhere, standing on our wooden tablả floor in the house, or on a stage in front of an audience.
Ate Elaine, my parents often told us, was the only one who rushed out the door to meet them everytime they got home from work or the market, and would shout “Mommy, mommy” “Daddy, daddy”, and gave hugs for a bar of Hershey’s, or Serg’s or Goya chocolate. She was the easiest to laugh and to please; the gentlest, and the least quarrelsome of the siblings. The only time she “scolded” me was when I fended off children who were milling around her.
She wasn’t allowed to run or to play in the streets without supervision because of her heart condition, but this did not stop her from joining a modified version of Chinese garter, pikὁ (“step-no”), and hide-and-seek, always within a two-block radius of my parents eyesight.
When i was four, and Teng was three, Kuya Junior and I headed our contingent of four children (Myra was a baby) and we broke out of the house, into the streets to play and throw rocks at the carabaos that were regularly brought to pasture in the lot in front of the house. We were expressly prohibited from doing this, we were required to sleep in the afternoons to grow tall. Our parents bolted the door and Mommy slept on a mat at the foot of the bed so we could not get out of the bed without stepping on her. We simply tiptoed quietly, got down the stairs, and stood on a small chair to reach the bolt of the door. We brought Ate Elaine, who was seven, with us. Like a band of prisoners, we were not going to leave her behind.
After hurling rocks at the carabaos, we ran out into the streets to see where they would go. In a minute, I looked behind us and saw the neighbor’s big dog, Judy, she was running toward us ferociously, and we shouted “si Judy, nauulol na” (“Judy had gone mad”), and Kuya Junior shouted, “may rabies yan” (“she has rabies”). We raced up the road, ran for our lives, and dragged Ate Elaine, then made a turn in the vacant lot full of talahib grass, where the carabaos had grazed, we dragged Teng so hard that he tripped on the talahib and had scrapes and abrasions, but we had to get out of there and reach home.
Mommy was furious. Ate Elaine’s skin color had turned violet. That was the only time I had seen her that angry –- the first and the last. She took a blanket , twirled it into a rope, wound it around us to squeeze us, and made us promise not to do this again. It wasn’t physically painful but we cried so hard because she was very angry. When I became an adult and reviewed this in my head, I realized she was probably… both angry and frightened because something untoward could have happened to Ate Elaine then.
But Ate Elaine never squealed on us, or blamed us, she never fought back, she won over.
We moved into a bungalow five years later, and it was three blocks from the church. That night, she and cousin Manang Linda were playing sungka. Ate Elaine could play anyone a mean game of sungka.Manang Linda was watching TV simultaneously, so, when she was not looking, Ate Elaine would scoop up all the shells and pebbles of all the houses and put them in her house (of course, Manang Linda knew and just laughed and let her); that night, she won all the rounds and her house was full.
The next morning, Manang Linda, Manang Nenette, Myra, and I went to early Sunday mass. Myra and I offered flowers at the foot of the statue of the blue Virgin Mary in front and at that moment i had two seconds of sudden throbbing in the heart. When we got home, Mommy was rushing out with tears streaming on her face, and said Ate Elaine had died. She was already in the hospital, Mommy came back to get documents and Ate Elaine’s Sunday frocks, she died from a blood clot that usually resulted from an irregular heart beat caused by her heart condition. Auntie Francing later in the day went to the stores and got her a white satin and lace dress for the wake and funeral.
Ate Elaine was the eldest.
My parents eloped because Mommy said her relatives wanted to marry her off with a provincemate, so she and my father eloped and they settled here in Manila. And so… you could say that Ate Elaine paved the way for the rest of us siblings. All along, we thought she needed protection but from the very beginning, even before birth, she had laid the bricks for the road we would take later on.
