PHILIPPINE TELEVISION: THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! (A COMMENTARY)

I. Ø  So our professor in one of our major subjects made us read an article regarding Philippine Television. At first, it wasn’t really that exciting, but upon reading it (no, delving into it), Wow. It was surely an eye-opener for me, a future media practitioner. I honestly expected it, but it was worse than I thought. So here are some important points I’d like to comment on: 

1) THAT PHILIPPINE TELEVISION HAS ALWAYS BEEN PROFIT-MOTIVATED AND NEVER FOR PUBLIC SERVICE. When I started reading the article, it was the first to be discussed: the acquisition and creation of ABS-CBN and other major broadcasting networks here in the country. You can see there that the reason was again for business. I think every network’s like that, even in other countries. I’ve never heard of a broadcasting company that aims to provide “information for the service of the public” (although ABS-CBN has that for a tagline, but I don’t really feel it). Never have I heard, in my 20 years of existence, of a broadcasting network whose sole purpose is to be of service to their countrymen. Almost every television station would only care about how much money they rake in thanks to faux advertising (not to mention ones which are deceptive from the truth), how their artists are being “perfectly trained”, or how their ratings fair. (Tidbit: ABS-CBN and GMA both have separate market research firms, so there goes being biased). How can these companies shift easily from being just an entrepreneurial station to a full-blown profit-motivated company? Where’s the sense of being “for the public” when all you show is the positively concealed condition of others whenever a distinguished foreign dignitary comes to visit our country? Where’s that “service” thing you claim. With that kind of nature comes the mediocrity of the companies; never giving its name all the potentials it has to experiment on different genres and focus on teenybopper love stories, corny sitcoms, and repetitive movies and TV shows about cheating husbands and desperate wives.

2) THAT PHILIPPINE TV STILL HAVE SEX AND VIOLENCE AS THE LEADING GENRES FOR VIEWERS. Because let’s face it: “sex sells” and people nowadays are amused with either two men punching each other to death and two women pulling each other’s hair until strands come off. Even the kids! When kids fight, they don’t stop them from doing so, instead, they film thw ehole thing (or maybe just a part) and post it on either YouTube or Facebook. In fact, I’m afraid I cannot even fathom why they would actually want to watch such, I mean, do they watch it because it feeds their hunger for so-called “action”? Do they watch it because it’s their own interpretation of “entertainment”? Do they watch it because they want their “video” to like 100000000 likes from strangers worldwide? Or do they watch it simply because of the influence of those who live to watch fake “extremes”? Only they know the answer, and I guess I’ll be left with confusion. 

3) THAT THE FUTURE OF PHILIPPINE TELEVISION WILL NOT BE BASED ON DIGITAL BLAH BLAHS BUT ON THE PERFORMANCE OF FUTURE JOURNALISTS/MEDIA PRACTITIONERS. I remember my professor once told us that we, the new generation of media people, are the “agents of change”. (It) Holds true, though. In today’s computer era, where everything happens in a click of the mouse, everything can have the possibility of changing. Social media’s birth opeed other births for technology, most especially media. We media people are always on the go, either of those. From the way we deliver news, to the way news reaches borders in both the country and outside of it, we have the responsibility to innovate the old ways of media and catch up with its globalization in the 21^st century. Gone are the days of boring old news programs and lousy newspapers. Now we digitize them and deliver them fresh from the source. We have this enthusiastic nature to promote good public relations and would very much be willing to pitch for advertisements to clients and stockholders. 

Those were just some salient points I’d like to react on. This article really helped opened my mind to the truth of our nation’s media standing and inspired me to pursue that change I’m talking about in #3. It's in our hands now. Are we up to take the challenge?