Memo to Monique

Monique Wilson pleads for more intelligent shows on local television. I am for that *   *   * always had been.

Sorry to say, however, she chose the wrong venue to air her sentiments with regard to the current status of Philippine TV.

While that appeared page one in a newspaper, in cyberspace her words simply looked like some idle thoughts. It was hardly any different from Ryan Agoncillo’s shout-out when then pregnant wife Judy Ann Santos was craving for In and Out burgers that are not available in the Philippines. Oh, did the hamburgers come flying in from the US West Coast? I understand they got enough burgers to start their own chain in Manila.

Now her concern *   *   * actually very valid *   *   * had been trivialized. Everyone just had to make a response to it mostly via social networking that the very core of the issue had been diluted. Heck, even I now want to say something. But I am not going to be nasty like her detractors.

If you ask me, Monique truly chose the wrong forum to air what she thinks of local shows on television. She shouldn’t have shared her thoughts with the rest of the world via Facebook. Do it that way and somebody is bound to contradict immediately. And she may never get anywhere with her cause since there are already a lot of distractions along the way. Good if she persists and I hope she succeeds.

Maybe she should have done it the old-fashioned way: One-on-one dialogues. Instead of crying out to the four corners of this earth, perhaps she should have started by knocking at the gates of the three networks that matter in the industry of Philippine television today.

Of course, that’s easier said than done. Getting inside ABS-CBN to begin with is like going to Alcatraz before this former penitentiary was turned into one of the Bay Area’s famed tourist spots.

Guard 1 will strip and search her.

Guard 2 will endlessly interrogate her and ask not only the purpose of her visit, but also her purpose in life.

She shouldn’t be reacting violently anymore when she gets to Guard 3. At this station, she should already have popped her Valium along with pills to lower her blood pressure. If Monique is not hypertensive yet when this column sees print, she will be when she gets to Guards 1 and 2 of ABS-CBN. She shouldn’t forget to bring her meds.

By the time she’s upstairs where the bosses are, she would already be so war-shocked that she wouldn’t even remember why she went to this station in the first place.

That she would get from the people who were supposed to secure ULTRA prior to the stampede on Wowowee. My apologies if they’ve already had a changing of the guards and now have different security personnel.

To be fair to ABS-CBN, Monique may also encounter problems with the two other networks. In GMA 7, she has to take the elevator that is so slow she would be ripe enough to be cast as the grandmother of Miss Saigon by the time she reaches the executive offices on the seventh floor.

I will not even discuss security issues in TV5 if there are any. First, she should get a traveler’s guide to drive to San Bartolome in Novaliches.

And then there’s the matter of getting an audience with the bosses. She need not really talk to the top honchos of every network. Holding dialogues with levels 2 and even 3 among the underlings could be a breakthrough for her cause. If she’d go that far and make the effort, the TV executives would realize she means business. They may do something.

Surely, they’ll find time to sit down with Monique. Twenty-two years after Miss Saigon, she still holds a special place in the business. She is respected and is known for quality work.

Why, she lifted into an art form even those supposedly commercial movies she made for Viva in the early ‘90s. She is an Urian winner (for Laro sa Baga). Let’s not even bother to get into how revered she is in the local theater scene.

She is the perfect person to rant against the trash that we see on TV. Ms. Wilson has the authority since I don’t think she can ever be associated with any work that’s garbage.

Of course, it’s not a bad idea if she could ask other crusading artists to join her for lunch with the TV bosses. Strength in numbers. Lea Salonga, maybe you can accompany her. You are a national treasure. People will listen to you.

TV execs may reason out that these are hard times (which is true) and they need to make money. Television is a business, after all. But if Monique and her group can drive the message across, that will get into the consciousness of the powerful TV people in time *   *   * that there is a sector that wants improvement. That there are groups that will put its foot down and will no longer tolerate the idiocy of the small box that is the TV set. Oops, yeah, there are flat screens now.

If Monique would care to invite me to formally join her cause, I will gladly accept. But I guess I may end up a liability.

For all the excellent writing in Startalk (we have multi-Palanca winner Floy Quintos and his equally brilliant men to do that for us), my show is still a showbiz-oriented program. I am a gossip show host. I will be the classic case of the pot calling the kettle black.

But let me tell you this: While waiting for owners of TV networks and their people to realize that it can’t be just money, money, money all the time, we can still do our own share as industry members.

How? Let me think first. I should be ready with my answers when the second installment of this piece comes around on Thursday.