State of National Television Assessment (SONTA)

(Third of three parts)

It’s been more than a week since President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo gave her State of the Nation Address (SONA), but here I am still at it – delivering my SONTA or State of National Television Assessment. But I am already in my final stretch and here is finally the concluding part of my assessment of national television today.

Eat, Bulaga! is undeniably still the Number One noontime show in the country (It rated 30.4 percent last Saturday vs. Wowowee’s 17.5 percent). Its secret I guess lies in the fact that it doesn’t only follow the trend, but sets it as well – having always been a trailblazer in the field of television. And then, of course, there is the enviable camaraderie of the Eat Bulaga barkada, which is so fun to watch especially when you are having lunch.

There’s an excess of fantaseryes on television – although I have to admit that I’m occasionally glued to some and enjoy the fight scenes in Sugo, the story flow of Encantadia and from time to time relish the humor of the comic trio of Malu de Guzman, Eugene Domingo and Meryll Soriano in Kampanerang Kubo.

There are no drama anthologies on TV today aside from Magpakailanman and Maalaala Mo Kaya, which both feature real-life stories of mostly celebrities and this leaves no room for literary adaptations – unlike in the ’70s or early ’80s when drama shows occasionally translated Filipino novels on the small screen. In 1974, for example, Channel 13’s Mga Dahong Ginto featured Amador Daguio’s Wedding Dance, which starred Angelo Castro Jr. and Marilou Diaz, who had just been voted one of Metro Manila’s Top Coeds, along with Menchu Genato (later to become Tita Maggi in TV commercials).

Most adaptations in those days, however, were culled from Hollywood classics, Broadway and American literary works: Wait Until Dark with Maritess Revilla, A Streetcar Named Desire with Rosa Rosal in the Blanche Dubois role, Come Back, Little Sheba with Gloria Sevilla playing the part originated by Shirley Booth in Broadway (and later in the movies where she won an Oscar) and The Glass Menagerie, which was adapted at least twice, once by Boots Anson-Roa and, later by Coney Reyes.

There are no dance programs on television, except for SOP Gigsters and ASAP Fanatics, which cater to the really young. No, I’m not encouraging all of us to live in the past, but how I miss the dance shows of yesteryears –like Penthouse 7 (Dancetime with Chito – I don’t remember much) and, more recently Easy Dancing (started by Dayanara Torres) and Keep on Dancing with Charlene Gonzalez.

No musicals in the tradition of Your Evening With Pilita, Carmen on Camera, Mari-len, those wonderful shows of Celeste Legaspi and Pinky de Leon in the old BBC-2, Zsa Zsa in the then newly-reopened ABS-CBN and Kuh: By Special Arrangement. No, I don’t mean to hark back to the old days again, but don’t you think it’s so pleasurable to be listening to pure music at its best – with minimal spiels? But I guess what the audience wants now is variety and so we have SOP and ASAP, which, strictly speaking, are classified as variety shows.

The network war has moved overseas. ABS-CBN’s The Filipino Channel (TFC) had been lording it over in the US for the longest time, but with GMA Pinoy TV being officially launched in the US (and other parts of the world), it’s now a global war between the two leading stations. World War III has finally come!