Illusions
By Antonio Montalvan II
Inquirer

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CERES DOYO SAID IT IN THIS SPACE, AND I'M glad she did, for I will say it again. The problem with the Ultra stampede was not poor crowd control, police supervision, or contingency plans. I am afraid the investigating authorities are missing the forest for the trees.

But so too does ABS-CBN. When the disaster struck, the television network was submissive to any investigation. But they have switched to the defensive mode since then. It would not be surprising if ABS-CBN turns recalcitrant in the next few days. Whether the network management and "Wowowee" organizers like it or not, the invitation that brought 30,000 people to jampack Ultra came from no one else but the television network. Let me say that again for it is a singularly important point: there was an invitation from ABS-CBN.

Let us cut the hogwash about "giving hope to the poor," as Willy Revillame, like a broken record, repeats and repeats. "Wowowee" is about the "war of the networks." Wasn't it trailing in the ratings behind its rival noontime show, "Eat Bulaga"? Didn't it entice 30,000 people to attend an anniversary show just to give itself a semblance of being more popular than its competition? Above all, wasn't it foolhardy for "Wowowee" and ABS-CBN to do that when it knew all along that their chosen venue was capable of accommodating only 18,000 people?

Willie's so-called "hope" should never be taken for real. "Wowowee" was never about hope. It was all about illusion. When you capitalize on the people's poverty and you lure the poor with the dream of winning prizes that you know, pretty well, not all in the crowd of 30,000 can win, that is, plain and simple, creating illusions.

Illusions do not provide the poor with dignity. Rather, illusions exploit them. To begin with, the show was never for them. In that show, they were simply used as props to jack up ratings in a war of profit, meant to fill only the coffers of television networks. As Doyo put it, "Wowowee" Pied Piper-ed its fans into the disaster that it turned out to be.

The language of illusion is something that is all too familiar to us. For that is how government treats the poor. In this country, government has come up with no real solutions to liberate the poor from their poverty. Whenever it goes beyond lip service, all it does is to sandpaper the face of poverty without going into the heart of the problem. What government does, ratings-hungry television networks are also doing. The government feeds the poor with illusions to win "pogi points," the networks mesmerize the poor with illusions of winning in the ratings war. Both are actually playing the same game. Like government, networks are never the wellspring of good social values.

Dodging the mendicancy issue, Tina Monzon-Palma was quick to defend her network (but of course). "'Wowowee' also gives to NGOs." Yes, exactly the same way government does. What is desolating is the misuse of TV's potential to instruct and educate. The effects of media on the social world-anthropologists and sociologists call it "mediatization" --cannot be underestimated.

I would like to believe, for instance, that most students' inability to speak fluent English-a common complaint of educators-is the result of "Manila-centric" media's silly use of Taglish. Television media in this country has never been multicultural in the first place. To this day, TV shows poke fun at the color of Whitney Tyson's skin, or the supposedly unattractive facial features of Diego. On the other hand, talk show hosts chatter as though their personal views are morally infallible. That is aside from the fact that for many of them, their English would probably be a source of miseducation. The news, which used to be a source of information for public service, has been conscripted into the network wars by stressing only the sensational, often including the silly lives of show-biz stars who are far from being the epitomes of social behavior.

A week after the tragedy, I still have to see a sign of contrition from ABS-CBN. Dong Puno's talk show last week, for instance, stuck to being self-serving. Evading questions on the issue of mendicancy and on the ratings war, Puno focused instead on the culpabilities of the police and the Pasig City government. It certainly didn't help that some of his guests such as Sen. Alfredo Lim heaped praises on the network -- not surprisingly, of course, as he was in their territory. Oh well, politicians. I would have hoped that the acerbic Harry Roque would train his guns on the network. But no, he was unusually polite, buttressing his opinion with his rabid obsession of the Gloria-Garci controversy by saying that, unlike in anti-Gloria rallies, there were no police to attend to the thousands of the "Wowowee" fans massed outside Ultra. Days after, his contention fell apart: there were in fact more than 400 policemen who had been deployed to Ultra in connection with the "Wowowee" first anniversary show. Expectedly, the comments of two other guests were obviously not given weight. Jesuit Fr. Ted Gonzales spoke on the need for media to instill the value of hard work over an easy life of gambling and prizes. The television veteran Pepe Pimentel, on the other hand, game show host of the defunct "Kwarta o Kahon," pointed to "Wowowee's" procedural flaws in drawing winners. But their opinions did not seem to matter to the host. I'm afraid that ABS-CBN is beginning to think of itself as infallible.

Television networks are now at a crossroads: to propagate good values or promote reliance on luck. Should it be a choice?

Comments to monta@cu-cdo.edu.ph

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