Awards-night gripes: Where they come from

Starting last Thursday, I’ve been writing about the various controversies that often accompany the awards season in Philippine entertainment. Below is the concluding portion.

The most serious and damaging accusation that may be hurled at an award-giving body is the peddling of awards. Through the years, we have questioned the list in the acting categories of some awards bodies and have concluded that maybe a payoff took place between some of the winners and the organizers.

However, there is no absolute proof that some of the winners had indeed bought their awards. No, not even when the mother of a former child actress made a scene in one of the awards presentations in the mid-’80s. Based on the story, the mother of the ex-child star was promised by some of the organizers that her daughter would be declared Best Child Actress in exchange for P25,000. Apparently, she coughed up the amount because during the awarding of the Best Child Actress and her daughter was not declared the winner, she ran toward the stage waving a receipt bearing the amount of P25,000.

No one was sure, however, what that receipt was for. (The many people who passed on the story to me didn’t see the receipt either). The only logical explanation I can think of at the moment is that it was probably a receipt for buying a full-page ad in the souvenir program. Now, whether or not some unscrupulous members of the organization turned the solicitation of the ad in the souvenir program into a package deal (with the promise of giving the child actress the trophy) will forever remain unclear.

Maybe it’s possible that some people really try to buy awards. (We’re not just sure if some have succeeded). But studying the situation carefully, this is quite a tough mission – with no assurance that the trophy will readily sail into the hands of the buyer. Sure, some actors are probably desperate enough to win an award to the point that they will bribe the organizers to make them win. But the problem here is that you have to work it out with the entire organization or at least a majority of the voting members to assure you of victory. And in this industry, people talk – even those involved with the scam. Trouble is, everyone talks and sometimes you don’t even know what to believe anymore. Talks about buying awards not surprisingly end just like that: talk – without concrete proof that these anomalies really do happen within our local award-giving bodies.

Lobbying, however, is something I’ve experienced first-hand a couple of times – with the managers and PR agents of movie actors urging me to please consider their respective wards when I cast my ballot in the annual Urian Awards. The feeling is very awkward, believe me, and you wouldn’t know exactly how to say no and still be polite about it.

Usually, I tell the persistent manager that it’s not just up for me to decide when it comes to the selection of winners – which is true because I’m really just equivalent to one vote.

In the Academy Awards, I think campaigning is still allowed. But not anymore in the Film Academy of the Philippines, which is supposed to be the local Oscars. During the first FAP Awards in 1983, campaigning was allowed and it turned out to be ugly. It was discontinued the following year. Unfortunately, there were still members who were said to have campaigned surreptitiously and this alarmed the Academy officials. They set up the electoral college in 1985 to enable them to monitor closely the voting members.

One problem that may never be solved within our local award-giving bodies (although this was also quite prevalent in the Oscars) is the prejudice of some voting members whether for or against directors, film companies, actors and even technical people.

You see, there are actors and actresses who can easily charm people especially at socials. But there are also those who couldn’t care less about what people think about them. Now, when these two actors are pitted against each other in an acting contest and all things being equal the voting member – being only human – would most likely favor the one with better PR.

Also, there are judges who sit in awards bodies who are intelligent, morally upright, could not be swayed and influenced by lobbyists, but at the same time very conservative in taste and are not open to new ideas in filmmaking. (I’ve sat with some of them in the Metro Manila Film Festival.)

Finally, there are those who manage to be part of an award-giving body, but could not tell the difference between a good film and a cartoon from Merry Melodies.

But in spite of all the awards night controversies I enumerated (starting in my Thursday column), our local award-giving bodies – generally – aren’t really all that bad.

Having observed for the longest time how our local award-giving bodies function. I have to say that most gripes and controversies that saw print and were gossiped about were really started by the camps of the sore losers.