Noontime shows can be an indication of how good – or in the case of the Philippines, bad – things are in any society. When citizens begin to pin their hopes more on variety shows and the lottery than they do on the government’s policies and promises, you just know that there’s something deeply and irrevocably wrong in the system.
The longest running television program in the country is a loud, chaotic show aired live: Eat Bulaga. From the very beginning, the show has been led by the triumvirate of Tito Sotto, Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon, and it marked its 35th anniversary last July. It first aired in 1979, and it continues to reign supreme three decades later.
Originally the show began as a “variety” show, meaning there were song and dance numbers, as well as a few contests, with some of them requiring the participation of members of the live studio audience. In the last decade, however, Eat Bulaga – and other shows that have tried and consequently failed to overtake Eat Bulaga in the ratings game – have become increasingly, well, charity or welfare oriented.
Take one-time audience member and Philippine Star columnist to Nenet Galang- Pereña’s description of Eat Bulaga and its centerpiece segment, “Juan for All, All for Juan: Bayanihan of d’Pipol.”
“The segment is anchored on what Eat, Bulaga! considers its mission-vision: Helping poor people and giving them a ray of hope and shower of happiness. It includes the Plastic ni Juan Project, where the plastic bottles they collect from the communities they visit are turned into school armchairs, and are later donated to chosen barangay schools.”
The hosts – Vic Sotto in the studio, and Jose Manalo, Wally Bayola and Paolo Ballesteros in the field – visit a lucky viewer in his or her house in usually depressed urban or rural barangays and show them with money (P35,000 up to P50,000!) and prizes. The three hosts Jose, Wally and Paolo – also known as the Sugod-bahay gang – also bring food fit for a feast that everyone in the winner’s household can share.
Since the segment began in 2010, it has without doubt become the most awaited part of the show. Eat Bulaga shoots it live from different places, from the depressed urban poor communities in East Rembo to the rural areas of Sto. Tomas, Batangas, and audiences are both envious and glad for the lucky viewer who get the call from Vic telling them that their lives are about to improve. Somewhat.
Of course we all know that even as the producers of Eat Bulaga would rather that the show and its sponsors be seen in the light of benefactors, the truth is that everything is still rooted in business and the goal is to rake in profits. In 2012, the defunct Newsbreak news site estimated that two-and-a-half-hour noontime show can earn up to P18 million a day. At the time, the published rate for advertisements was P165,400 for 30-seconder ads, and based on this alone, Eat Bulaga can earn up to P15 million daily from the tv ads alone. Different companies such as Procter and Gamble Philippines and Unilever Philippines are only two of the show’s major sponsors.
Still, even as Eat Bulaga does make money from its charity and welfare-oriented segments like “Juan for All,” what matters is that Filipinos who watch the show believe they can also be lucky and be helped. And some of them do receive help.
There’s the old woman whose husband suffered a stroke and is bedridden, no money for physical therapy. With the money she got from the show, she said she was going to buy him a wheelchair and a bigger television so they could at least watch together. Then there’s the housewife who has been so desperate about fixing the roof of their wooden patch-work house; she said she said would go a long towards ensuring that their house would no longer resemble an indoor swimming pool whenever there was a typhoon. There’s also the father whose wife left him with their four children to work abroad as a domestic helper. The mother’s monthly remittance is far from enough to keep the whole family afloat and the children in school, so the father wants to put up a small store to help make ends.
And on and on. There are contestants who need money so their children can go to college. Many others are battling [quote_right] When they watch television, they temporarily escape the sordidness of their everyday reality and hope that maybe, one day, they can join a game show and win big.[/quote_right]disease, or their loved ones are in dire need of medicine that, a month’s worth of doses would cost a social climber’s iPhone6. So many people pin their hopes on game shows, or on Lotto, or prayers because there is no one else to turn to. In the Philippines, every day is a battle for survival for the poor. Dignity is often the first to go, and what remains is the will to live, to continue even as in so many, many cases, there is nothing to look forward to but more hardship, more heartbreak as they see their children hungry, more violence as their human rights to decent shelter, health care and education are brutally ignored and denied. Their needs are so basic, and their dreams are so simple, but both are so beyond their means. When they watch television, they temporarily escape the sordidness of their everyday reality and hope that maybe, one day, they can join a game show and win big.
Eat Bulaga, its hosts and executive producers say, try to help Filipinos in need.
Which is more than we can about say, for instance, the Benigno Aquino government.
The 2015 Budget is Anti-Poor
Can Filipinos rely on the government to use funds for the public good? No.
For a moment let’s put aside the infuriating arrogance of the president and his defense of his corruption and the corruption of his officials. In practice, how does the BS Aquino government spit on the calls of Filipinos for help? It puts together a national budget that disregards what Filipinos need to live in dignity.
The BS Aquino government continues to show twisted priorities and an immoral, illegal commitment to continue disbursing public funds through the infamous pork barrel system. This is very obvious in its 2015 budget proposal now being heard in the House of Representatives. The budget is for P2.6 trillion, and there are definite signs that it’s not going to be a pro-people budget.
According to the Bayan Muna party-list, far from listening to the Filipino people’s demand to scrap all anomalous government transactions disguised as public infrastructure projects, the Aquino government has turned the 2015 budget into a gargantuan pork barrel fund that can be easily manipulated and exploited by the president and his allies. Almost P958 billion of the budget is in the form of lump sum discretionary funds or pork barrel of Pres. Aquino.
The Department of Budget and Management said that only 1.8 percent of the overall budget is in lump sums, the entire budget itself is comprised of lump sums amounting to billions each: Budgetary Support to GOCCs (P61.3 B), Assistance to LGUs (P33.1 B), Risk management program (P30 B), Support for infra projects and social programs (P20 B), Unprogrammed funds (P123 B), Majority of the Miscellaneous Personnel Benefit Fund (P118 B), Grassroots Participatory Budgeting, P20.9 B, and the Pamana Program (P7.3 B). Billions of funds are also under the discretionary control of the office of the president: P148 B Malampaya funds, P21.2 B worth of Special Accounts, and P29.5B in Off Budget Accounts, including the Motor Vehicles Users’ Charge and the President’s Social Fund from the revenues generated of the Philippine Gaming Corporation (PAGCOR) and the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO).
Oh, and let’s not forget the massive “savings” for 2015 amounting to P123.1B. Thinking they could fool the public, Malacanang and its allies in congress renamed the DAP was reworded into the SPF or the Special Purpose Funds which has long existed in the budget.
In short, the 2015 national budget is a pork barrel budget that will again benefit those in Malacañang and its henchmen and women. The 2015 Aquino budget, like previous budgets, gives priority to foreign debt payments, the corruption laden and mendicancy encouraging CCT (conditional cash transfer) scheme and increases the presidential pork barrel. The CCT budget is now P64.7 billion. Since the 2011 fiscal year, allocations for the CCT have increased by 70 percent of P13 billion annually. Despite this, poverty rates continue to increase: from 23.3 million Filipinos in 2008, to 24 million in 2013. Data from IBON Philippines reveal that 67 percent of the Philippine population live in poverty.
Some P789.8 billion is being allocated for foreign debt payments. This amount is double the budget allocations for education, and three times the amount being squared off for social security, welfare and employment. It is also eight time bigger than allocations for public health, and 22 times bigger than allocations for public housing and community development.
[quote_center]Some P789.8 billion is being allocated for foreign debt payments. This amount is double the budget allocations for education, and three times the amount being squared off for social security, welfare and employment. It is also eight time bigger than allocations for public health, and 22 times bigger than allocations for public housing and community development.[/quote_center]
The third group of agencies that are getting the highest allocations at P144 billion are the implementers of massive human rights violations: the Armed Forces of the Philippines, the Department of National Defense.
There is no mistaking how the government has abandoned its responsibility to provide for public services. The Aquino government has remained faithful to the policies of privatization, deregulation and privatization, turning over government-run service agencies to the private sector. No less than P57.2 billion are being allocated for the private-partnership program (PPP) in 2015, and P30 billion of this is being diverted to the Risk Management Program, or the public fund to guarantee profits for local and foreign investors.
State Colleges and Universities (SUC) also continue to be neglected. Only 13 of the needed P122.7 billion budget is being given to the country’s 110 SUCs. These educational institutions continue to produce graduates who inevitably face problems finding jobs that fit them or their educational attainment.
[quote_center]Only 13 of the needed P122.7 billion budget is being given to the country’s 110 SUCs[/quote_center]
So, all in all, what we have is a national budget that will not benefit Filipinos in concrete and necessary ways. There is so much money that it boggles the mind of minimum wage earners. But what use is all this money to Filipinos when it is not going to be used to improve their standards of living and quality of life?
Nothing Has Changed
The human rights community and the victims/survivors of the dark years of the Marcos dictatorship recently marked the 42nd anniversary of martial law and the courage of those who fought against it. After reading the stories about martial law, and what the governments that succeeded Marcos have done when it comes to human rights, one is left with the conclusion: not much has changed. If anything, things are worse because there is all this pretense that there is democracy in the Philippines and that civil rights and liberties are being upheld and respected. Poverty is widespread, and the corruption in government that makes it impossible to eradicate poverty is a thousand times more virulent. Human rights continue to be violated with impunity, and without the need for the government to impose martial law.
What can we do then given that we have a government that for all intents and purposes is useless and corrupt? BS Aquino was cast in the same mold as Marcos, and so were his predecessors who have shown nothing but disdain for the aspirations of Filipinos for genuine economic progress founded on social justice.
Every six years national elections are held, and not even a month later, things reveal themselves to be the same under the new administration. Every administration from Cory Aquino’s and up to her inept and insufferably arrogant son Benigno has put together national budgets that runs counter to the interest of the Filipino people.
What kind of budget should be enacted? A pro-people budget. One that is pro-poor, pro-worker, pro-farmer, pro-women and pro-children. It’s a budget that allocates resources to the marginalized sectors who comprise the majority of the population, and it is not just for recurrent purposes. A pro-people budget is concerned with broad-based ownership. Such a budget will prioritize the Filipino people’s basic needs such as food security, healthcare, public housing, education, transport and basic utilities such as electricity and water. This is a budget that aims to provide for the poor, aiding them in their aspirations to improve their lives, better their situation and enable them to contribute more productively to society and its goals.
Obviously, the 2014 budget the BS Aquino government none of these things, and its budget is a reflection of its character and nature: anti-poor, anti-people.
So again, as with all things – in the daily campaigns for higher wages, job security, land reform, for human rights and in the fight against corruption and bureaucrat capitalism, Filipinos have to rely on their own selves, and we should not wait for the 2016 elections to press for reforms or demand accountability from the criminals in office. BS Aquino and his allies and cronies in the House of Representatives and the senate insult Filipinos with a budget that empowers thieves to continue their theft, and to cover their crimes with technical and legal jargon. We should not stand aside and let them do this.
There are many ways to fight back, and we must do so in defense of our rights and the future of this country. We have no choice but to rely on our collective efforts as a people to oppose corruption in government and systemic injustice. Because we cannot rely on this government, because Eat Bulaga is just a show, Lotto is a game of chance, and prayers almost always go unanswered.
Image source: Eat Bulaga Facebook page
