22 April 2007
MR. EUGENIO LOPEZ III
President and Chief Executive Officer
ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corporation
Sgt. Esguerra Avenue cor Mother Ignacia St.
Quezon City 1103
Dear Mr. Lopez,
Recently, your Channel 2 head executive, Ms. Charo Santos-Concio, reacting to the March 4-17 ratings data from AGB-Nielsen Media Research Philippines which reveal that ABS-CBN is the leading TV station nationwide, said: “We will continue to sustain audience focus, never forgetting that leadership is a result of the importance we place on our audience rather than ourselves…in ABS-CBN, there will be no room for complacency as we seek continuous improvement. We will persist to be innovation leaders, and remain true to our core purpose– that of being in the service of the Filipino, wherever he may be.” (The Daily Tribune, 04/03/2007).
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We welcome Ms. Concio’s statement, and take this occasion to strongly reiterate our objection to your show, Pinoy Big Brother (PBB).
Two years ago, Pro-Life Philippines submitted a position paper to MTRCB urging it to stop the airing of PBB because of its bad implications, exposing not only children but society in general, to wrong values and sexuality.
Today, we maintain the same position.
ABS-CBN promised, then, to tone down the show’s sexual and erotic content. To this day, however, PBB continues to offend TV audience’s sensibilities. In its March 20 episode , for instance, it aired a female housemate inserting her hand in the underwear of a male housemate, a scene which, as MTCRB Chair Ma. Consoliza P. Laguardia herself described, “was really vulgar and indecent.” Although the program’s host apologized to viewers for such offensive behavior and ABS-CBN promised to remind all housemates to conduct themselves properly while they are in the house, it is not enough. These measures are but palliative, mere “band-aid” patches to a cancerous wound. For in truth, it is the very nature and format of the show that is indecent. Its content is just a logical offshoot of it.
Consider the following: It peddles the show as “reality” when it , in fact, manipulates it, rendering a fabricated version to an audience that are in need of reaffirming their own realities. That is inarguably deceptive. It lures young men and women to forsake their inherent right to privacy with the promise of fame and fortune. That is unconscionably exploitative. It locks them up in a house for weeks, setting them up for inappropriate intimacies. That is dangerously irresponsible. It airs their dirty linen and subjects them to ordeals in the guise of challenges to serve as fodder for the amusement of viewers. That is downrightly crude.
Above all, the biggest loser here is the audience, the Filipino people, whose interest ABS-CBN has ironically vowed to serve. Patrick Flores exposes the show’s cruel impact on the Filipino in his column “Television and reality”(Manila Standard Today, 08/30/05) when he wrote: “ … the audience are effectively turned into voyeurs, titillated by the contrived existence of real people doing real things inside an electronic fish bowl.” Willie Nepomuceno, a highly regarded personality in the Philippine entertainment scene and political landscape put it more bluntly: “I don’t like the show because I feel pinaglalaruan dito ang sensibilities ng mga tao on national television. I think this stuff should be done in laboratories, with patients, not housemates… televiewers who patronize the show are encouraged para mamboso o maging tsismoso’t tsismosa…” (Manila Bulletin, 04/22/06).
When your officers talk of your corporate core purpose, we take it to mean that “being in the service of the Filipino” is seeking the good of the Filipino. PBB only serves to encourage exhibitionism and voyuerism in our society, stripping us of our dignity as a person and as a people. Surely, keeping it on the air could hardly be considered, in any way it is translated, being true to your corporate core purpose.
We urge you, then, to walk your talk. Scrap the showing of Pinoy Big Brother now.
Very truly yours,
MA. JULIETA F. WASAN
Executive Director
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