Category: willie revillame

the krip & willie show

i hear the kill-willie burgis elements are lying low.   i wonder why.   good, if it’s to rethink the issue of child abuse, which is different from willie abuse.   good, if it’s to take stock and see that if you don’t watch local tv, if you don’t watch willie, and all you could be bothered to take in was the spliced/edited youtube video, then you don’t have a right to make any kind of judgement, which should never be removed from the context of Filipino mass culture, no matter how baduy or kadiri-to-death to burgis sensitivities.   good, if the self-righteous burgis elements are beginning to realize that the kill-willie save-janjan noise is a lynch-mob show of power that could should be used to fix government, fix the economy, fix the environment, fix education.   they’re just not up to it?   television’s dreadfulness is merely a reflection of filipino society’s larger dreadfulness, and it’s unfair to single out willie when everybody else in corridors of power are being as dreadful, if in more subtle, sometimes unthinking, ways.

in academe, i see that the plagiarist’s friends are very quiet, simply incapable, it would seem, of drawing a line between right and wrong — the friendship, the utang na loob, the samahan, are just too important.   instead they draw a line between friends and not-friends.   values of honesty and integrity can go hang.

lem garcellano puts it quite graphically:

…para lang kasong jan-jan yan. di ka ka-tropa, luto ka sa sarili mong mantika. hindi nila masikmurang i-crispy pata si Krip. kasi isalang mo ang isa, lahat sasagitisit sa isang kawa. (parang pagluluto ng bulig sa Bulacan, buhay pa ibubuhos lahat sa kawa ng kumukulong mantika tapos sasakluban. maririnig mo yung kasag ng dahandahang pagkamatay).  *let’s see them fry their own kind*

nah, this doesnt look like a social media lynch mob that would have the guts to lynch its own kind; the other kind, yes.   halatang halata in the krip case, because of the silence, and in the willie case, because of the hysteria.

the silence must be because they agree with krip’s lame excuse that since he had edited the work of joble considerably, kanya na yon?  i wish he or joble would show us the original and the edited so we can see the truth of that.   but even so,  the fact that he allowed the article to be published only with joble’s byline only means that he as editor gave up all rights to the material.   he can’t eat his cake (binayaran siya as editor) and have it, too (kanya pa rin ang artikulo as co-author).

as for the willie hysteria,  here’s a treat from james cordova, he whose profile pic is a pic of macario sakay.   a series of irreverent fb jabs at some leaders of the lynch mob.

@Momblogger, one of the noisiest anti-Willie Revillame bloggers who harassed advertisers into pulling out their ads from Willing Willie, admits that she doesn’t watch TV. And yet she judges its content? Is she on drugs or something. Hypocrites. 7:11 pm yesterday

At ikaw Emily Abrera, magtigil ka! You ran McCann-Erickson for years. Among your clients are the same advertisers who supported what you now denounce as TV game shows that dumb down Filipinos. Nakaupo ka lang sa CCP akala mo kung sino ka nang magsalita. Hypocrite! 7:15 pm yesterday

At ikaw John Silva, ikaw na hitad ka, wag kang magmalinis dahil, sa totoo lang, what you’re doing — seeking grants just for the sake of seeking grants and teaching others to do it — is pangraraket at panggagamit din ng ibang tao. Kung gusto niyo tulungan si Janjan, tulungan niyo lang. Wag niyo ng gamitin ang bata para lang mailabas nyo ang pagkamuhi niyo sa mga baduy na kagaya ni Willie Revillame. 7:27 pm yesterday

Ikaw naman Etta Rosales, grow some balls naman. Wag ka kaagad nagpapadala sa ingay ng ilang taong nag-aastang promoter and protector of good taste ng mga Pilipino. Dilawan ka na nga sa pulitika, dilawan ka pa rin sa isyu na to? Naknangtokwa ka.  7:32 pm yesterday

At ikaw Honey Carandang, una, palitan mo na palayaw mo. Kadiri pakinggan na Honey tawag sa isang may edad na na tulad mo. Pangalawa, ayusin mo naman yang practice mo. Wag kang pagamit sa ABS-CBN. Just because ikaw daw ang pinakasikat na child psychologist sa bansa e puede ka ng mag-diagnose sa isang bata without even talking to him first. (Regards kay Ricky.)  7:35 pm yesterday

At ikaw Dinky Soliman, ayusin mo trabaho mo. Sa kaso ni Janjan, saka lang kayo umaksyon nung nag-ingay na sa Internet, almost 2 weeks after the March 12 episode. Dapat March 13 pa lang, nagwala na kayo. E pinalampas niyo pa ilang araw. Ano hinintay niyo – matuyo ang highlights mo? Ang labas tuloy, ginawa niyo lang ito kasi may nag-ingay. E paano kung wala? (Lose the highlights, by the way. It affects your thinking.) 7:40 pm yesterday

persecuting willie

so i’ve just been called a pedophile on facebook because i protested against a poster of a goodlooking teenage boy in the briefest of white briefs in macho-dance pose.   says the poster:

WILLIE’S SUMMER DANCE STUDIO PRESENTS
MACHO DANCING FOR BOYS!

Learn to shake hips
& pick up customers
Parents can make up
to $1K a week
And it’s free!

A Corporate Social Responsibility Project of:
PROCTOR @ GAMBLE, JOLLIBEE, UNILEVER, PEPSODENT, VASELINE, OISHI, CDO, SURF DETERGENT, TECHNOMARINE, CAMELLA’S HOMES, LHUILLER AND OTHER OUTSTANDING COMPANIES WHO SPONSOR WILLIE’S DANCING CONTESTS FOR BOYS!

HURRY! CLASSES LIMITED! CALL MANNY PANGILINAN AT CHANNEL 5 TODAY. GUARANTEED CUSTOMERS FOR YOUR BOY AFTER CLASSES!

quite offended i commented that the poster was too too much!   totally unfair to willie and his sponsors!   that the 6 year old was the one who wanted to go on tv to show off his dance routine.   he had done it many times before elsewhere, even in school, and was rewarded and lauded for it.   that willie was just as surprised as everyone.   and that we’re imposing our sensibilities on the masa, sensibilities that they don’t share.   whats indecent to us may not be indecent to them.   that there’s clearly a class divide here.

and that’s when one of the commenters said i must be a pedophile, or a media executive, which at the moment daw are the same thing.   i’d cut and paste that comment except that it was deleted by the commenter soon after i replied: oh wow, this is not an intelligent conversation. signing off…   the downside of social media: having to deal with the whole spectrum, from the stupid, sometimes irrational, many times unthinking, to the intelligent and creative and occasionally sublime comments that any blog, tweet, or fb status is open to, especially when one is in a major major disagreement with a lynch mob, such as the kick-out-willie movement.

of course because it’s been sensationalized to the max, mainstream media are taking up what social media started.   the inquirer has it on the front page: Willie treatment of dancing boy ‘criminal’ says the broadsheet. Revillame treatment of dancing boy in tears criminal–CHR says the online version.

MANILA, Philippines—What the show “Willing Willie” did to Jan-Jan Suan, the 6-year-old boy who was told to simulate a striptease while in tears in exchange for cash in front of a cheering studio audience, was criminal, the Commission on Human Rights (CHR) said Tuesday.

The CHR said it would investigate the episode as it appeared to have violated a law protecting children.

“The commission will investigate this incident in order to identify the person/s liable and to recommend proper legal actions against them,” it said in a statement.

what’s scandalizing to me is the CHR’s, or is it the inquirer‘s? summary of the situation:  “the 6-year-old boy who was told to simulate a striptease while in tears in exchange for cash in front of a cheering studio audience…”

this makes it seem like willie told the boy, o sumayaw ka ng “striptease”, bibigyan kita ng pera.   when in fact it’s not the way it happened at all.   anyone who watches willing willie would know that the kid would have been given money, kahit ano pang isinayaw niya, lalo na with tears effect, which was not because he was feeling “humiliated.”   anyone who has taken the time to check out the story and really watch the youtube video en toto, and then watched the interviews of the boy and his parents in the following days, would know that it was the production staff’s responsibility, and that they had toned it down na nga, pinalitan nila yung music na dala ng bata, which was hayden kho’s “careless whisper”.

also, it was nothing close to a striptease.   there was no shedding of clothing or suggestion thereof.   does the CHR, or the inquirer, even know what macho dancing is like?   it’s no different from what little girls dancing like sex bomb dancers do.

karen cardenas reflects: …on The Dance and what we impose on it. He was fully dressed, he was making movements, he wasn’t provocative. What is the difference from ocho-ocho or for heaven’s sake, the grind or tahitian or dirty dancing or lambada? Kasi pang “macho dancer”? Bakit niyo minamaliit ang macho dancer? —facebook 29 march

of course the next question posed is: why didn’t willie stop it right away, after he had seen the macho-dancer routine.   why did he let it go on and on?   it was so inappropriate, so offensive, and what about the little boy, kawawa naman, umiiyak na nga, yada yada yada

willie tried to explain, everyone was having a good time, the father, the aunt, even the boy, who gamely danced everytime he heard his music instead of running away when he had 10k na in his pocket — i mean you know, if he was aware enough to feel oppressed by what he was doing, he would have been smart enough to get off that stage the moment he got the money, okay na, panalo na, but he didn’t.

everyone was having a good time.   the first time i saw it, natawa rin ako.   natawa ako sa bata, natawa ako kay willie, natawa ako sa audience.   of course i knew by then that there was an uproar over it in social media, so i was also thinking omg yes it’s the sort of thing na pagdidiskitahan ng opus deis and couples for christ and their ilk.   still i could relate to the laughter, what fun to break out of the norm, do something different, even, defy a sexual taboo, mwahaha!   and susmayorsep alam kaya ng batang ito kung sinong sumasayaw ng ganyan?   mwahahaha!   sana hindi!    mwahahaha!

read karen’s Willie, Humiliation

… when Willie makes jokes, is it to humiliate the contestants, to make them feel lowly, inferior, or is there a collective humility in all of them, an unspoken awareness that it’s open season. Laugh at me, make fun of me, because it’s just one big hilarious joke, everything we are doing here. It’s one big show, and it isn’t real.

Willie, from what i have heard, came from the same situation as his contestants. He was, as far as the stories go, also struggling in life before he became rich and famous. My guess is he, like his guests, understands self-deprecation, he knows what it is like to laugh at himself, at his situation.

Feeling humiliated may not be something they concern themselves with because their lives are hard enough, and if they can have a little fun in an arena meant for them, why not? Don’t Pinoys love to laugh, even at themselves?

and if we go even deeper, and attribute more intelligence to the masa, the poor, the lower class, i daresay the exploitation wasn’t one-way.   sure, the capitalists exploit the masa with this sort of show, but it is just as possible that the boy’s family had read into the system of the gameshow and thought:  this is the way to go, we do something different, we do something a little naughty, we make more money.   depende sa perspective.   which is only to say that there are no absolutes here, and willie does not deserve the wholesale villification and opprobrium.

it is so clear now how hated willie, hero of the masses, is by the know-it-all self-righteous self-proclaimed pundits of social media, led it would seem by fellow celebrities in the showbiz industry who just can’t stand being upstaged by a willie revillame na hindi naman guapo, walang ka-class-class, pero tumatabo on primetime tv and in opm CDs, laban kayo?

because hey, the masses love him, he’s one of them, just a little smarter and luckier, and i’m sure they love that he is medyo bastos, which is, wittingly or un-, an up-yours to the moralist establishment that is at the root of their poverty.

and speaking of bastos, sino ba talagang bastos.   di ba mas bastos yung nag-upload ng video of the little boy sa youtube?   di ba mas bastos ang nag-upload ng poster sa facebook, na natanggap ko rin sa email, for the sake of the little boy daw?   what kind of caring is that?

like katrina says of the offensive poster:

sinong bastos ngayon?
no really, lalabanan ninyo si Willie Revillame by doing this?
how crass. how un-intelligent. how irresponsible can you get.

the president’s lovelife

if the president seriously wants questions re his lovelife to stop, he should simply learn to respond with a no-comment — ang hirap ba, parang si kris ba –and his communications groups could help by warning the press not to waste their time, there are a host of more important public concerns — like what’s the trade-off with japan ba– and don’t treat the president naman like a showbiz figure.

instead the president has started to cater to the media’s penchant for love and romance among the rich and famous, announcing that he is dating celebrity stylist liz uy, what a beautiful person pala she is, and how impressed he is by her conversation.   and he wants them to stop asking?   c’mon.

makes me think it’s all spin.  if they could do it with shalani soledad, why not with liz uy?  because i heard it through the grapevine that the break-up with shalani happened before the campaign pa, pero napakiusapan si shalani to play along muna, it was good for the campaign, pa-macho effect i suppose.   which would explain why she was never seen with the sisters, never sat with the sisters, either at the proclamation or at the inaugural rites and festivities.   a real girlfriend, a real loved one, would have been right there celebrating with the new president and his family and not lost somewhere among lesser guests, when she was there at all.

so why the liz uy spin?   maybe to distract us from other more pressing matters.   also i suppose it has to do with shalani’s high-profile debut on television via no less than the wily willie’s new primetime show on tv 5.   biglang everyone’s talking about shalani — kahit pa she lost me at “hello” — i hear nag-i-improve naman.   but kris must hate it, lalo na’t she’s nowhere these days, and what about that paparazzi interview with shalani’s mom that raised questions like, bakit sinisiraan si shalani at sinong naninira?   and what better way to kill all talk than by having the president move on, romance another woman, kilig kris to the bones.

so why liz uy?   she’s one of kris’ many best friends, di ba, like boy abunda and vice ganda, so why not.   at least tunay siyang babae.   and since she spends a lot of time na with the president, making sure he looks good, perfect choice na rin.

which is NOT to denigrate ms. uy, who comes from a relationship with sexy kanto boy and topnotch actor john lloyd cruz, who’s a commercial AND critical success.   so is dating, maybe romancing, the president, if true, a level-up for liz?   i’m not sure.   possibly.   i guess.

okay okay maybe i’m wrong, maybe it’s all true, maybe it’s love, and maybe it’s even for keeps, but i’m suspending disbelief only if, and when, liz uy herself, with stars in her eyes, and in the president’s arms, confirms it all.

meanwhile, please naman, mr. president, FREE THE MORONG 43!  it’s long overdue.

willie, wowowee, way to go

writes emil jurado in manila standard today:

Willie Revillame of Wowowee appeared confident when he, along with his lawyers, met media to bid them goodbye. Where Wowowee would be going next, whether to GMA-7 or to Manny Pangilinan’s ABC-5, he didn’t say. But it was evident that he was aware he had the goods on the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN network.

Wowowee, which used to air for three hours every day, made Revillame a sensation not only among viewers here but also to Filipino Americans who could watch him over The Filipino Channel. But the network changed it so that Willie would only appear once a week. That is, in effect, an abrogation of Revillame’s contract. Every lawyer should know this.

Thus, ABS-CBN cannot hold on to Wowowee, a program which gave the Lopez network some P3 million daily (with Willie getting almost P1 million daily). No wonder, ABS-CBN reported a 178 percent surge in income, what with all those political advertisements during the campaign and close to P3.5 billion from Wowowee.

Despite attempts of ABS-CBN to replace Wowowee, new programs just don’t do as well in ratings. . .

like him or hate him, there is no denying willie’s awesome appeal to the filipino masses and i almost can’t believe that the network has chosento disenfranchise him — it’s like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.   i suppose there’s more to it than meets the eye?

“Willie . . . violated the behavioral provisions of his contract when he threatened the ABS-CBN management during the May 4, 2010 episode of Wowowee, with a resignation if management does not fire another artist of the network. His behavior was generally seen as a display of disrespect and arrogance, completely unacceptable to the Filipino public.

but willie’s may 4 behavior was not “completely unacceptable” to me.   while he may have crossed a line when he passionately if arrogantly reacted to jobert sucaldito’s criticism of a wowowee game calling for contestants na high school graduates with 75-79 general average, i thought that sucaldito also crossed a line when he arrogantly asked, why feature contestants who are bobo?   THAT was completely unacceptable to me.

in the first place, what was he doing, dissing a kapamilya?   he started it, not willie.  (and it wasn’t the first time, i hear.)   wala bang “behavioral provision” ang kontrata niya?   in the second place, what was he doing, dissing these high school graduates given the low and laughable quality of education our public school system provides.   kasalanan kaya nila na mababa ang grades nila?   porke ba mababa ang grades ay bobo na?   and yet willie was quickly sanctioned, suspended without pay, and sucaldito gayly prattles on, i mean, gets off scot-free, nary a public reprimand.

i’m told, of course, that i’m being naive.   that this is political.   that willie is being made to suffer for going orange rather than yellow last may.  the witches won, and the witches rule?