ROCK MISS WORLD, ROCK!

The recently concluded beauty pageant Binibining Pilipinas 2008 created upheaval amongst many Filipinos as according to some, judges’ decision seems a bit controversial. Foreign and local media highlighted the event focusing on the announced winner Bb. Pilipinas- World, Janina San Miguel and it’s being widely criticised on the internet.
This is one of the most anticipated events to most Filipinos along with Manny Pacquiao and other pinoy boxers’ match on an international arena as the delegates selected will represent the country to various worldwide competitions. This year’s winner for Philippines’ delegate to Miss World pageant extremely made her greatest breakthrough. A seventeen year-old, Mass Communication freshman is from the University of the East – my alma mater.

As I read some news clips on the internet about this and learned that one of the winners is a UE student, I went on further and to my dismay, saw several video clips at youtube about the controversial question-and-answer of Ms. San Miguel.

I can hardly believe that this situation did really happen and it’s just unbelievable as this could only be heard on common jokes about obnoxious pinoy English knowing that Philippines is one of the call centre capital of the world.
In my honest opinion, Ms. San Miguel did a great job as she finally made it to win the crown and she caused wakefulness to most of the Filipino people. In the middle of continuous political turmoil in the country, at least there are some other things that our people could divert their attention at. In addition to, this may have called the attention to improve our educational system as Philippines is not going far behind to progression.

University of the East and all educational institutions could play an important role on this particularly by improving its system to help students to be academically and socially prepared on situations like this. I could recall when I was at UE, 8 years ago, Speech classes were provided but it really didn’t help us at all. Our Speech Comm. Professor couldn’t even pronounce English words correctly and unbelievably most of us finished the course without understanding and learning the basic and Standard English Vowels and Consonant applications, which is very important in accent training and oral and conversational English. We were introduced to the Mock Radio facility for vocal modulation but never used it ever. Entirely, the whole speech class was in writing.

Philippines has a very promising future in Call Centre industry and many Filipinos are doing well with a call-centre career. Trainings are provided efficiently and this is becoming the starter to many Pinoy aspirants, in which they should have it in their high school and college courses. Few years back, there were reports about 2 out of 20 applicants for a call centre makes it and 1 out of 2 makes it to the final interview. Evidently, Filipino people are genuinely diversed people who could easily adapt to any learning advancement.

Janina San Miguel’s journey to win the Miss World crown is going further if Filipinos would take the situation in a positive light. This may be funny but not enough reason to make fun with, instead, why don’t we help each other to improve each and everyone? Foreign people doesn’t really care about speaking a perfect language, afterall, it’s the thought that counts and the person’s overall personality.

PINOY ULTIMATE SURVIVORS

Our TFC (The Filipino Channel, a local Philippine television network subscription made available worldwide, powered by ABS-CBN company) service was restored back after 5 straight months. Realising that we were getting out dated with Philippines’ current events and news, particularly the rise-and-fall of Philippine peso in the world market, we decided to re-subscribe to the service.

Unsurprisingly, after few days of watching, I went exhausted and sick of the program Wowowee which is being aired during noontime in the Philippines. This show is absolutely filthy I should say. Claiming that it is to help millions of poor Filipino family to have a chance of winning a cash prize at the same time having fun in front of the national television, this sounds fair enough but looking at the entire picture, it is indirectly putting the whole Filipinos to humiliation as its being viewed worldwide.
These poor people are extremely looking pathetic in front of the national television in exchange of a little amount of cash while the rest of the world is having fun watching them thinking that its cause is to provide charities to the less fortunate. The more desperate-looking you are, the more cash you’ll get seems to be one of its’ game agenda.
This situation maybe funny in some point, but I strongly believe that it’s not something that one should make fun with. It’s absolutely disturbing as you can see; these poor people are really trying hard to look miserable in order to win a prize. Remembering the tragedy of the Ultra Stampede few years back, several lives were jeopardised for the same reasons and yet, our poor people didn’t seem to learn their lessons at all. They cant be blamed, as this opportunity could basically provide them extra fortune regardless of how humiliating they may be as afterall, everyone may think, these are all for fun. But its actually not, in fact very sickening. In the law of media ethics, a responsible broadcasting is strictly observed. Basically, the main objective is to expose the truth for the awareness of everyone concerned, however, there are some limitations that should be considered for the welfare of the viewers and everyone involved. Looking at these helpless people perform to look silly to win a cash prizes is as bad as watching a bleeding crippled person, being asked to dance in exchange of help.
ABS-CBN is a powerful network equipped with talented people working behind the scenes and the show’s host Willie Revillame is an equally talented person with a distinct charisma, definitely this would keep the show at its best even if they slightly reformat the show’s concept a little bit.

Lastly, the Filipino people is capable of doing something more than dancing, singing out of tune, making fun of themselves and struggling for a couple amount of money, whether rich or poor. A typical pinoy with dignity and pride is a survivor for all times, and this is what the world wants to see.