By Benjamin Pimentel
INQUIRER.net

Confronted by the rage over the way he humiliated a six-year old boy, Willie Revillame & Co. apologized.

Or did they?

Well, if they had stopped after the second sentence of their press release, it would have been a decent enough way of saying they were sorry—“We wish to stress that there was never any intention to humiliate or abuse Jan-Jan or any contestant on the show.” Period.

But they kept on going. They tried to spin it some more by claiming that the boy featured on Revillame’s show “appeared to be sad or even in tears, not because he was being forced to dance, but because he felt the dance was ‘serious’ and he was playing a role.”

Are they serious? Or as a barkada of mine would say, “’Chong, nagkakabolahan na.”
And the so-called apology was proven to be even more bogus shortly after it was issued. Having already subjected the boy to an agonizing appearance on his show, Revillame then brought the whole family for yet another round of humiliation.

And again, Jan-Jan wasn’t smiling. Again, he was in tears!
But Revillame just doesn’t get it. He simply cannot understand that there’s a huge difference between giving people a chance to shine, and shining a harsh, cruel spotlight on their poverty, and their struggle to survive, even their desperation, for cheap laughs and for ratings.

Still, I’d argue—and some may disagree—that the outrage and the activism that led to the bogus apology paid off.

No, shows like Willing Willie and others on other networks will continue to cash in on the poverty of many Filipinos. Yes, children will likely still be part of that equation.

But I bet people like Revillame, including those from other networks, will now think twice before featuring another little macho dancer. Though he and his producers may think it’s cute, they probably would hesitate to have a little girl doing a pole dance as part of the program.

So those who took the time and effort to speak out on this issue (including my friend Peachy Rallonza Bretana who helped lead the Facebook campaign) can claim a small, yet significant, victory. For there's now some kind of line, even if it’s still blurry, that TV networks know they must not cross when it comes to children.

This much was evident on the show in which Revillame featured the boy’s parents and sister. Egged on by his father, Jan-Jan looked set to do a Michael Jackson routine, complete with the crotch-grabbing.

Oh, you can see it on Revillame’s face that he wanted that on his show! But then, you see him hesitating. Eventually, he stops the boy from doing the dance.

The king of tasteless Pinoy TV backed down!

There’s another more important reason why the outrage over what happened to Jan Jan was significant: It made more Filipinos aware of the issues and even the problems related to children performing on national television.

It certainly shook me up.
For I must confess that, I’ve been so used to seeing these kinds of TV segments, that when I first saw the infamous clip, it took a while for me to be affected by it.

In fact, if Jan-Jan had been smiling, if he had shown even the slightest hint that he was enjoying what he was doing, I probably would have let it go. I probably would have just tuned it out. Like many of us, I’ve been so desensitized when it comes to children on Pinoy noontime TV shows, that I typically don’t pay attention anymore.

But it was hard not to be affected by the pained look on the little boy’s face—and by his tears. (Certainly part of the reason is that I have two sons of my own, including one about Jan-Jan’s age.)

I actually was even expecting Revillame to have enough sense to put a stop to the excruciating scene, by saying, “Okay Jan-Jan, you’ve done enough. Let’s move on to the next contestant.”
If he had done that, I think people would not have reacted as strongly as they did. But he didn’t. Revillame kept on going. And going. And going.

There’s one point raised by Revillame’s defenders I agree with: It’s not just his show. It’s not just the network which has embraced him. Other shows, and other networks and institutions treat children this way.
Which is why the Facebook-based activism that emerged from this controversy could serve as a first step toward addressing the issue of how should children be treated and portrayed on TV and media in general. It could be starting point for that deeper conversation.

For the truth is children singing, dancing, performing, entertaining has been part of our culture for generations. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that.

But perhaps we have to begin talking more about why there’s a very big difference between boys and girls dancing the Macarena or the Electric Slide, or singing pop tunes at a fiesta or at a tita’s or lolo’s birthday party—and a boy in tears pretending to be a little macho dancer on national TV

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer