Jan-Jan's parents sue child psychologist, blogger

MANILA, Philippines -  The parents of Jan-Jan, the six-year-old boy who became controversial after dancing on the game show “Willing Willie,” yesterday filed a complaint for libel against a child psychologist, a former senior consultant of the National Museum and a blogger for allegedly showing that their son was a victim of abuse and that they are condoning it.

In their complaint filed before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s Office, Joe Suan and his wife Diana said child psychologist Ma. Lourdes Carandang, John Silva, former senior consultant of the National Museum and blogger Froilan Grate made their son a “poster boy” of child abuse.

Carandang had earlier sent a letter to Grace Poe Llamanzares, chair of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board (MTRCB), urging the agency to take action against Willing Willie and its host Willie Revillame for allegedly subjecting Jan-Jan to child abuse.

Grate also wrote a complaint to the MTRCB asking Revillame and the show’s producers to issue a public apology to Jan-Jan and the other guests whom they have allegedly humiliated in the past.

Silva, meanwhile, the complainants said, had posted in his blog a statement alleging that Willing Willie and TV-5 “like boys doing macho dancing.”

“We will not allow Jan-Jan to be exploited for sinister ends by certain people. We strongly object to his being used as an example or ‘poster boy’ for child abuse. He was not abused and we will not allow anyone to abuse him,” the parents said in their complaint.

In the March 12 episode of Willing Willie, Jan-Jan performed a dance number, which Revillame’s critics had tagged as an act of child abuse.

According to the critics, the dance was sexually suggestive and was similar to “macho dancing.”

Leonard de Vera, lawyer for Revillame, stressed that the dance performed by Jan-Jan known as “body wave” was not sexually suggestive and is not the same as the “macho dance” performed in bars.

“Beauty, like perversity, lies in the eyes of the beholder. The child simply wanted to show his talent,” said De Vera.

Senate won’t investigate

Meanwhile, Senate committee on public information and mass media chairman Gregorio Honasan said he sees no reason for the controversy to become any bigger than it already is because it can be resolved by the MTRCB.

Honasan said that Congress need not dip its fingers into the issue and he would not initiate an inquiry just because there are celebrities involved.

He said having Congress conduct its own inquiry into the matter would be counterproductive because of the amount of work that the legislature has to deal with already.

“Instead of making the issue even bigger than it already is, it would be better to look into ways to strengthen the MTRCB and make it more effective in performing its mandate,” Honasan said.

He said the Senate has a lot of other issues to deal with and conducting an inquiry into the issue just because it involves Revillame would not be in its best interest.

He said he would take the matter up with Llamanzares and ask for her inputs on how to better address such incidents.

“Do we need to strengthen the mandate of the MTRCB? Does it have enough teeth?” Honasan said about the questions that he would raise with Llamanzares.

In such cases, he said a mere apology from the personalities involved should not be enough to clear the issue and that concrete actions should be taken to prevent something similar from happening in the future.

The MTRCB is in the process of reviewing the incident but other agencies such as the Commission on Human Rights and the Department of Justice have also gave their opinions about it, all of which denounced what the show did.– With Marvin Sy