I remember My Family Three

A text joke I received middle of this week went like this:

Father: Anak, ano ang natutunan mo sa eskuwela ngayon?
Daughter: Marami.
Father: Tulad ng ano?
Daughter: Tulad ng paggamit ng po at opo.
Father: Eh di maru-nong ka nang gumamit ngayon ng po at opo?
Daughter: Oo naman, ‘no! Hello?!

While I found this text joke to be cute and funny, I thought it was also a bit disturbing because I know of a lot of kids today who are not very respectful of their elders. Surely, this stems from the fact that they are not being taught enough values.

Moral values – in my opinion – should be taught primarily at home and in school. Media, especially television, however, should also help teach moral values to the young.

In more recent TV history, there were a few sitcoms that helped dispense moral values to its viewers. Examples of these programs were Hapi-House with Tito Sotto and Sandy Andolong (she was later replaced by Helen Gamboa) and the very successful comedy/fantasy Okay Ka, Fairy Ko.

In the mid-’60s, there was Sta. Zita and Mary Rose which had an unsuccessful comeback on ABS-CBN in the late ’90s.

Then, in 1971, the old ABS-CBN produced a sitcom that had moral values dripping from every page of its weekly script. The show was called My Family Three. Directed by Teddy Valdemor, it featured Tina Revilla, Jingle and Frankie Navaja, Jr. as orphaned siblings living in an abandoned bus. Ramon Zamora was also part of the cast as their guardian.

Aired every Sunday at 7 p.m., My Family Three used every opportunity (but without necessarily being hard sell) to teach the proper values to its mostly young viewers. Inserted in small and seemingly insignificant scenes of this show were little lessons on how to have more harmonious relationship with family members.

In one dinner scene, for example, Frankie Navaja, Jr. childishly complains about always having to use an old plate that had chipped edges. Tina Revilla scolds him lightly for being such a whiner, but exchanges plates with the young Frankie in the end just to keep harmony within the family. As the eldest, she felt she had to be the one to give in over such trivial matter. (And when any of the two younger siblings got sick, it was always like the end of the world for poor Tina.)

Actually, even sleeping arrangements in that household-in-a-bus were carefully presented to conform to what is acceptable in polite society. (In John & Marsha, a parish priest once wrote to the producers to say that it was quite inappropriate for Nida Blanca to be sleeping on the same bed with a grown-up son, Rolly Quizon, while her TV husband Dolphy slept in another part of their shanty.)

In My Family Three, Ramon Zamora was made to pitch a tent outside the bus because it wouldn’t have looked proper if he was made to sleep under the same roof with Tina Revilla.

When Zamora left the show, however (he was already on his way to becoming a big movie star at this point), his replacement – the late comedian Pugo – was allowed to sleep at the other end of the bus because he was already old anyway. (This was the era before tabloids started reporting about lolos molesting their own granddaughters.)

Scripts of this sitcom naturally pushed for the propagation of good and positive values. In one episode aired in May of 1972, the community where the siblings lived organized a santacruzan with Tina Revilla as Reyna Elena. Problems cropped up, however, when the hermano mayor decided to invite a movie star (played by starlet Emma Esmeralda) to become the Reyna. The hermano mayor thought the community members would approve of his decision and would just be too happy to see a popular film celebrity gracing the santacruzan. He was wrong. The much-admired actress turned out to be a monster who complained about everything – the food she was served, the streets she was going to walk on during the procession, etc.

When the film star threatened to walk out of the affair, they let her go and the community members were just too happy and pleased to have as their Reyna Elena a simple, but kind-hearted girl in the person of Tina Revilla.

The stories and situations presented in this sitcom may not have been funny all the time, but each scene was always diligently presented and was pleasant to watch with other members of the family. Every episode, in fact, was always aimed at strengthening family ties.

This show, unfortunately, was cancelled when Marcos had ABS-CBN shut down during Martial Law. My Family Three may have had a short life span on television, but during its brief stint on the air, it helped in its own little way in spreading lessons on moral values among the young audience.