Remembering M/V Princess of the Stars

The MV Princess of the Stars capsized off Romblon province on June 21, 2008, exactly one year ago today. It capsized after being directly hit by Typhoon Frank. It carried at least 820 passengers. Of the total, 504 were recovered and 443 have been identified so far.

I was a passenger on the same ship less than a year before it sank. The Union of Metro Manila Cooperatives, of which I am a director, decided to hold the General Assembly of the coop union on board the ship. The general assembly will be held during the trip to and from Cebu. The overnight stay at Cebu once we disembark is our night out.

It was an offer too good to pass. And of course, I went despite stern warnings from some of my friends because a major typhoon had just passed a few days before.

My first thought upon seeing it was: "wow, this ship is humongous!" It was 7 stories high. I remember sending SMS to my friends saying the ship was so large I couldn't even feel the rocking motion of the waves. The facilities and amenities in the M/V Princess of the Stars, was to me (who's used to some rickety ships plying the Batangas Port to Mindoro route) really impressive. It had a convention cum disco area, a sun deck, karaoke rooms,play area for kids, a swimming pool and well-appointed cabins.

More than the ship itself, what I shall remember about the Prinecess is it's nice crew who accommodated our various requests during the 4 day trip/convention/assembly. Being younger than my fellow directors, I am usually left with the secretariat to help in the conduct of the assembly. I remember being green with envy as my fellow directors recount how the nice captain took them to the bridge while I was at the convention hall clicking on a laptop as a resource speaker was doing a presentation.

I may not have met the nice captain but I have met and interacted with his nice crew. And the thought that some of them may be lying on an upturned 7 story coffin off Romblon doesn't fail to leave a lump in my throat.

I pray that justice be done to the victims of the M/V Princess of the Stars. And I hope that such a tragedy never happen again.

The Mike Enriquez effect

I used to watch TV Patrol religiously but I became disgusted with it when the newscast featured longer and longer segments of crime or traffic accidents. When I tune in to my evening newscast, I want to watch news, dammit, not some neighborhood altercation somewhere in Metro Manila that gets to be broadcast on National TV just because some blockhead reporter hangs around police precincts too much and do not sniff out more news worthy stories.

Now, I’m starting to get incensed with GMA news, and I believe it’s because of Mike Enriquez and what he brought to the news and newscasting in general. It may be funny when an impersonator mimics Mike Enriquez in a comedy routine but alas, the real joke is on us.



Mike Enriquez doesn’t deliver the news: he shouts them. He treats his audience as if they are all hard of hearing. When somebody said he should be a hard-hittin’ newscaster, he took it to mean literally. He took it to mean aurally. Maybe one could forgive him in the beginning because his roots are from radio broadcasting, but he’s been on it for years on television and somebody should tell him to tone down his voice--- particularly his bosses from GMA 7.

Mike Enriquez also points out what is already quite apparent. He treats everyone as if they were half-blind. For instance, just before the commercials are shown, he announces that in a small hick town, a bull went rampaging inside a supermarket as caught in a CCTV camera. He says: “O, ayun, nakita ninyo mga kapuso? O, ayun o, sumugod!”. He does this every time. He interjects his inane remarks into his news spiel. Somebody should tell him: “yes, everyone can see that, now stop pointing out the obvious!”.

Mike Enriquez, as the self-styled Imbestigador ng Bayan, also struts about like he’s Zorro: the defender of the poor and the oppressed. Yes, even in the newscast wherein he features himself. We want the news, we don’t want to see your adventures (or more likely, the adventures of your staff wherein you take all the credit as you narrate).

He ceased to be the dark knight of the oppressed for me years ago when I saw in one of the segments in his program the story of a supposedly abused student. This student was apparently being sexually propositioned by a superior in his school, so what the Imbestigador did was to equip that minor with a hidden camera and set-up a sting operation. The child met with the alleged sexual molester in a motel. Only then did they call the police. So when they tried to barge into the motel with cameras and police in tow, the motel management ran interference, fearing it would sow panic in their customers.

It was several hours later when they were finally allowed to secure the child. In the end, the molester was caught, the Imbestigador had good ratings but at what price? The child was molested under their own noses. Under the sting they had poorly planned. To my mind, they were as guilty as the child molester, perhaps even more so. To my mind, Mike Enriquez is also a child molester.

Of course, now, Mike Enriquez carries the Anak-Seal TV award as one of the most admired TV newscaster of children. Ay, if they only knew.

And this is what disturbs me most about this Mike Enriquez brand of newscasting: it’s being legitimized. It’s being accepted as good newscasting even by standard award –giving bodies. Gone are the days of no-frills newscasts from my youth from the likes of Ms. Tina Monzon-Palma and Ms. Cathy Santillan. The worse is, I can sense that the newscasters even from other channels are assimilating the Mike Enriquez Style.

When I watch the evening news, I want to watch more news. Not more newscaster quirks.

Walang Kinikilingan, Walang Pinoprotektahan

In a recent interview, Ms. Jessica Soho, vice-president for News programs of the GMA network’s News and Public Affairs’ Department said: “…ang branding sa amin, pag GMA news kilala yan na patas, nasa gitna talaga. Totoo yan sinasabi namin eh. Wala kaming interests to protect, therefore wala kaming kinikilingan, wala kaming pinuprotektahan. Ang baduy, noh? (Laughs). Serbisyong totoo lamang. Kung merong kaming pwedeng ipagmalaki, yun”.

I can’t believe she takes that seriously. Or expects anyone else to swallow it hook, line and sinker. The operative word in her reply, I believe is “Branding”. That is how they like to fashion themselves. But of course, we know better.

I do not believe that GMA news, or any news organization for that matter, can really be that objective to state “walang kinikilingan, walang pinoprotektahan”. Even the tenets of elementary journalism and broadcasting admits that we can’t really claim pure objectivity. Our political, religious, sexual and cultural upbringing will always color the way we see and interpret things and I don’t think the reporters from GMA-7 are exempt from this. Our political socialization affords us a unique lens in which we view---or in the case of newscasters---frame the stories.

GMA news is a business and like all businesses, they, who run them would move heaven and earth to protect their own. They have an interest to perpetuate: the credibility of their own broadcast.

Also, they have a television station with a stable of stars and shows. Even a cursory look at the showbiz news the evening broadcast carries will show that it is heavily focused--- on their own stars. For instance they feature such inane segments like “Sexbomb girls (the network’s patented version of dancing vixens popularized in a noontime show) teaches children to dance”. It had no real human interest to begin with. It wasn’t as if the children were dying of terminal diseases or something. Nope.

Why on earth would they feature that? Are they trying to promote the Sexbomb Girls as some group little Filipino children could emulate? “Mama, when I grow up, I wanna be a sexbomb girl!”. Mom: “now pout your lips, gyrate and say: Awwww!” The real reason: it was because the sexbomb girls has a new season in their afternoon soap.

There’s also the Manila-centic news. You can hear about a neighborhood altercation among residents in Metro manila complete with slapping incidents inside the police stations but you don’t hear similar incidents in neighboring provinces. You hear about a motorcycle accident in Metro Manila involving one person but you don’t hear about vehicular accidents in Visayas or Mindanao unless it involves a certain threshold of fatalities preferably in the double digits. So yes, there’s bias because the bread-and-butter of GMA news derives from advertising revenues in Metro Manila so they would naturally pander to news about or in Metro Manila.

GMA also has newscasters doubling as product endorsers. One endorses a shampoo, the other a liquor brand, while some a laundry detergent and even a health supplement. Their credibility as news presentors suffer because GMA news allows this. Although I consider myself more of a GMA viewer (oh, please no “kapuso” shtick) than the other channel, I believe that the restriction on product endorsements by newscasters as imposed by ABS-CBN was a good call. Will the product endorsers report about labor disputes or labor issues in the companies whose product they espouse? How about if someone doesn’t get well from taking a health supplement that a famous newscaster endorses? If truly they have no bias, they would have to report such cases., but the question is: will they have credibility? Will the people believe in them?

There’s also the Atty. Gozon slant. Atty. Felipe Gozon (along with Mr. Gilberto Duavit, of the Duavit political clan in Rizal) owns the majority shares of the network. I feel that if a foundation wanted to have news coverage for its activities it will have to invite Atty. Gozon because there’s almost always an Atty. Gozon feature in every evening newscast. It doesn’t matter what the activity was, if they had invited Mr. Gozon to speak, that would most assuredly earn a few seconds spot on national television. Ah, what the powers-that-be at GMA news would do to suck up to their boss.

Every evening we hear “walang kinikilingan, walang pinoprotektahan, serbisyong totoo lamang” as the GMA 7 sign-off but the truth is, no matter how much they repeat this mantra, no matter how much they try to make themselves and others believe: it will never be self-fulfilling.

Because it’s patently false.

Letter to GMA 7 news

Last December, after watching SAKSI, the late evening newscast at GMA Channel 7, I wrote a letter to its editor, to wit:

I saw the SAKSI newscast yesterday ostensibly to view the UP Lantern parade which I had just attended, when I came across the news regarding the sinking of the ship off the coast of Antique.

The ship apparently was en route to San Jose, Occidental Mindoro but the computer graphics erroneously showed: SAN JOSE, ORIENTAL MINDORO.

Did your editors also err? Even a cursory knowledge of geography would reveal that the western side is usually referred as the Occidental side and not oriental.

I also take umbrage because I grew up in San Jose. Occidental Mindoro may not have the tourist haven called Puerto Galera but not every prosperous and beautiful town in Mindoro belongs to Oriental Mindoro---San Jose being a case in point.

I was not able to see the earlier newscast, 24 Oras, but I hope you did not repeat such faux. I hope you could rectify this error. Thank you for your time.

The editor never replied. When I checked back on the story in their website, I found out that the ship actually sank in SAN JOSE, ANTIQUE and not SAN JOSE, OCCIDENTAL MINDORO. Well how about that, eh? They even showed a computer-generated map of its location in Mindoro but it turns out to be in a completely different island several hundred miles away.

Of course, GMA 7 would never admit to such faux pas. Who would have noticed anyway? The newscast was aired almost at midnight. Everyone watching would have been half-asleep by then. Nobody would care. Maybe just some nutcase who happens to hail from San Jose, Occidental Mindoro and who was watching the news to see some fireworks. But then, he's a nobody.

Well, I care for the truth. And for a station that bills itself as the "tahanan ng katotohanan"("house of truth"), GMA 7 should also be very careful in dispensing factual truths in its newscast.