Other than the fashion both inside and outside the halls of Congress (which will be topic for another entry), what’s also exciting about the President’s annual SONA are the discussions that lead up to it, where once a year, media actually sort of asks the right questions (finally!). Then again, with a past SONA to diss, and a new one to compare it to, how can any show go wrong?

And so on the new TV show Harapan with Korina Sanchez and Ted Failon last Monday sat Vencer Crisostomo, secretary-general of the League of Filipino Students, and Department of Education Undersecretary Vilma Labrador, face-to-face (kasi nga harapan, hindi ba?) to talk about GMA’s presidential promises on education. Suffice it to say that in this harapan, Crisostomo had the upper hand, primarily because he was faced with a Dep Ed undersecretary who, like her boss GMA, had her way with truth. That is, she had a way of lying by not talking about the full picture of our public schools.

So Labrador says with pride in her voice and a sparkle in her eyes that the teacher to pupil ratio has consistently been kept down to 1:35 or 1:36, thanks to GMA’s administration. Barely able to contain his laughter, Crisostomo responds that this is only so because the classrooms have been cut in half — as in literally in half with makeshift walls! — so instead of 1 teacher to 70 pupils, it can truthfully be said that it’s now 1 teacher to 35 students at any given time.

He also points out that it’s the logic of having three shifts - that is, three different classes - for any given day, any teacher, and every halved classroom, that allows for the 1:35 ratio to be true. In fact Dep Ed Order No. 62, s 2004, speaks of these shifts as a way of solving the problem of classroom shortage, which at that point was at 51,947. In the said order, it’s even recommended that for certain public schools, they must have as many as four shifts, not three, and the maximum number of students for every classroom is set at 65. Wait, is that a whole, or a halved classroom?

But Labrador seemed surprised at Crisostomo’s response, if not flabbergasted. How could she respond? Well, with no answer at all. So she starts talking about statistics on the number of graduates in public schools, and how statistically, the numbers have been consistent. To which of course Crisostomo responds by mentioning the now higher drop out rate, which would technically allow for the number of graduates to be consistent, because you’re not counting the growing number of students who leave school because they can’t afford it.

But public schools are suppose to be free, yes? Failon asks. No, according to Crisostomo, as there are fees that students continue to be required to pay, to which Labrador says, report those schools that still have fees and the Dep Ed will take care of it. To which Crisostomo says, “hindi naman maiiwasan ‘yon.” Because really, if a school has to collect money for a bathroom that students can use, or an electric fan to ease the heat of a classroom with 70 students, who would complain?

Meanwhile, Labrador is left with nothing to say, and nothing to be proud of. Someone should’ve warned her that speaking of truths based merely on gov’t statistics, doesn’t hold in the face of someone like Crisostomo who has a real sense of what it is that actually happens on the ground, in the public schools, that half the time seems to only be a theory to the Dep Ed and GMA.

Of course it helped that Crisostomo was not your grim-and-determined scary activist. For most of Harapan, his charm was difficult to miss, informed as it was with knowing that truth was on his side – the kind that sustains organizations like his, because it is the truth that is lived by the majority who aren’t invited to speak in shows like this one.

LFS: one point. Dep Ed: zero.

Beyond ABS-CBN

It is therefore no surprise that gone are the days when any actor or actress could just gather enough gumption to hold a microphone and instantly become TV host. So much more is at stake now, given the fact that many of these reality shows are expensive franchises. And it is that one host who needs to keep audiences from changing channels at any given time.

But both ABS-CBN 2 and GMA 7 have yet to come up with anyone that’s close to Gonzaga’s stature, if one may call it that. Rodriguez and Gonzales, while both bubbling with personality, seem to be one and the same person, even with their different skin colors and shows. Much can be said about the fact that while Rodriguez has slowly started to move from hosting to acting, she isn’t really much of an actress; and both her and Gonzales’ upper class origins reveals itself when they’re made to relate with the mass audience. The same may be said for Manzano, whose personality has yet to shine in the context of hosting chores that’s predominantly done by females, at least on ABS-CBN.

GMA 7 would seem to have one over the former channel when it comes to male hosts, with its usual suspect Paolo Bediones, but also a new set of younger hosts Raymond Guttierez (for Pinoy Idol and Showbiz Central), Moe Twister (for Showbiz Central), and Drew Arellano (for Unang Hirit and Balikbayan).

Of this batch, it’s Guttierez who got the coveted Pinoy Idol hosting stint, for reasons beyond anyone’s understanding. Suffice it to say that he lacks the maturity and credibility for the job, and one actually reminisces about the witty repartee and personality that at least Ryan Agoncillo leant to the past incarnation of the same franchise.

Meanwhile, it is Twister and Arellano who are more engaging to watch, successful as both are at traversing the line between their fluent-English upbringing and class origins, and the mass audience that the network banks on for profits. Both also reveal much of their personalities in the shows that they do, proving that Gonzaga’s style of silly and quirky - her realness - does work across genders, and networks, even shows.

And yet, both Twister and Arellano are relegated to the shows that they have, all of which aren’t on primetime and really do limit them insofar as flexing their hosting muscles are concerned. Here, it does become clear that as far as GMA 7 is concerned host-creation is at best a flimsy concept that’s barely important.

Something that’s proven further by their decision to have singer Karylle and actress Rhian Ramos, to co-host Pinoy Idol with Guttierez. This trio’s barely there when it comes to keeping the show and its sub-show Pinoy Idol Extra interesting, as the three bank on their pretty faces and articulateness (and obviously their very good managers who got them the hosting stints) instead of on credibility or personality.

Something in turn, that ABS-CBN seems to consciously build in their roster of hosts. Where credibility in contemporary times is represented by the number of product endorsements and projects that the hosts are given, and personality is about selling everything and anything possible about these hosts - talent and skill notwithstanding.

And if the ratings game is any indication, then Pinoy Dream Academy undoubtedly has one over Pinoy Idol - that is, it has Gonzaga, Gil and Crawford, over Guttierez, Karylle and Ramos. It’s really no contest.

The reality show taking over local television has been lamented often enough; what has gone unnoticed is how this has also brought upon us a set of faces and voices that have become television show hosts. Unlike their predecessors, these hosts are usually created from scratch - they’re not primarily actors or singers who have ended up hosting one variety show or another. Instead, they are groomed to become the “ideal” hosts for any given show, any given network. Ultimately allowing for the hosts to become symbols of not just the shows they hold together, but of the network they are part of.

Toni Gonzaga country

In recent years, ABS-CBN 2 has become Toni Gonzaga country - even when Gonzaga has consistently gotten bad reviews for her use of ungrammatical English, Filipino and Taglish, and the over the top, almost irritating, delivery of her spiels. For most of the year, Gonzaga’s on TV everyday for a reality show (Pinoy Big Brother and all its incarnations, as well as Pinoy Dream Academy), and on Saturday afternoons for showbiz talkshow Entertainment Live.

In all these shows, Gonzaga holds things together as host - even when we are made to believe, as probably her co-hosts are, that everyone who holds a microphone is on equal footing. So while Mariel Rodriguez, Bianca Gonzales and Nikki Gil are usually in these shows with her, they are mere secondary hosts, doing pre-taped, usually negligible segments. Even with Luis Manzano (in PBB Teen Edition) and recently, Billy Crawford (in Pinoy Dream Academy), Gonzaga is allowed to man the fort as she controls spiels, and particularly with Crawford, practically carrying him and his awkward hosting skills through most of the show.

But Gonzaga isn’t just a reality/talk show host. On Sundays, she shares the stage with other ABS-CBN stars on variety show ASAP, where she also proves her singing and dancing chops. She’s also an actress with a string of movie hits, a singer with a couple of CDs to her name, and a concert performer. So while she seems to be the same as the rest of ‘em ABS-CBN stars who are expected to do everything, Gonzaga’s edge is that she actually really and truly does everything.

To the best of whatever abilities she has, even when limited, which apparently has paid off, if product endorsements are to be a measure of her credibility as celebrity.

The host as celebrity

This is the way Gonzaga has redefined what it means to be a successful host on contemporary television. The host may have always been celebrity, but Gonzaga pushed it further by becoming feed and fodder for everything else that goes with being actress and singer in this country: she revels in intrigues, bares all about her life and love, allows for a real quirky and silly self to be revealed through her shows - and once, even as a houseguest in Big Brother’s house.

It is here that one finds the Gonzaga may have redefined the notion of the host by selling not just her ability to keep people glued to their TV screens, but also by using her personality and person as that which sets her apart from the rest.

And so even when Nikki Gil can hold her own (she’s a MYX VJ after all), she seems to have something missing compared to Gonzaga. Because the latter shows that hosting isn’t just a skill anymore; it’s about everything else but that.

Next time: Beyond ABS-CBN

it’s easy to get lost in the mudslinging that goes into debates about any bill that touches on reproductive health and its contingent issues (contraceptive use, family planning) in this country. what with the notions of morality and rights, the Church and the State, religion versus the law, that get thrown in for good measure. talaga naman, the weak at heart would rather not say anything. baka nga namang matawag ka pang imoral (which, given the Church’s definition isn’t a bad thing at all), o demonyo.

minsan, mas madaling pagtawanan, the things that are revealed about our institutions in the midst of issues like this. one can’t help but laugh, for example, at the outmoded ways in which the Church views its devotees as: (a) living sexless lives or (b) responsible, compassionate and intelligent adults, who aren’t wont to give in to sexual needs. anyone who does research on this issue will also be brought to sites like this one, where Pro-Life people insist on keeping families smaller by what they call the “mucus method” - where women will keep track of their vaginal discharge, (maybe even touching it and smelling it for good measure, you can never be sure after all), so that they know when they can have sex (which is of course dependent on whether or not they want to have children).

recently though, the laughter has been a pained one. the kind that’s premised on a fear of the Church and its ability to insist on things political using their notion of morality. particularly given the ways in which GMA has tried her best to keep this institution happy - even if only through her silences and wry smiles. it’s even harder to be hopeful when all we hear from her comes from Gov. Joey Salceda, who has the gall to reduce the issue and the government’s stand to this: “There’s very little pressure for drastic change in the policy, which the President says she wants to be consistent,” he said. He added partly in jest, “Apparently, there are no people going out on the streets calling for less sex because it is sinfully delightful.” what a pointless thing to say.

along with the silence, or stupid soundbites, from GMA’s camp, there’s the Church and its believers, coming out in droves, talking about immorality and death, and all the possible evils that a reproductive health bill will bring on. where we talk about population control, they’ll say but the population’s fine, what we need are economic policies to take care of our admittedly growing number. where we talk about impoverished families with too many children, they say but i have eight children, and i’m perfectly happy! where we talk about parents’ right to choose how many children to have, when to stop having children, and how to keep from having children; they’ll point a finger and scream: a culture of sin, a culture of evil! anti-life advocates!

but this is not, cannot simply be, a debate that’s about pro-life versus pro-choice. that debate, to begin with, is premised on an abortion law, not a reproductive health bill. a bill, that in its current version continues to insist that abortion is illegal in this country. when the Church and its cohorts say otherwise, they are lying.

what this bill does call for is medical attention for the half a million women who go through illegal abortions every year, in some godforsaken dirty room in the bowels of our urban spaces. what it does insist on, is the right of every woman to choose for herself what kind of method to use, if she wants to have less children, or none at all, given the sexual relationship she’s embroiled in, within or outside of marriage.

what the Consolidated Reproductive Health Bill knows is that while it would be great to imagine that all Pinoy husbands will not insist on sex when their wives don’t want it, or when their wives say it’s a “bad time” (because you know, my mucus isn’t right); while it’s fantastic and ideal to imagine that the youth aren’t sexually active too early for their age; while it would be great if all single Pinoy adults were sexually responsible; in reality, in truth, these ideals aren’t what we’re working with.

it only takes a more intelligent assessment of the ideologies that surround relationships and marriage in this country to see that this can’t simply be about couples deciding privately how they can grow their families. here, in the land of poverty and miseducation, marriage and patriarchy, couples living in shanties and unable to afford basic services, have 8, 9, 10, 11! children; women die at childbirth, children die before they turn one, more before they turn five; and the women who do want and need to control their pregnancies can’t afford the choices available.

what this highlights, and which discussions on pro-(culture-of-)life forget, is that ultimately, a reproductive health bill is about women and their right to their bodies.

and it is when we speak of women that we must acknowledge their diversity: not all women want children, or want many of them, and some women just enjoy having a husband/lover and the sexual relationship that allows; not all women want to focus on their mucus or the calendar, and risk getting pregnant given the uncertainty of these methods; a majority of women in this country are poor, uneducated or miseducated about their rights and the roles within the family, and don’t know any better than to accede to their husband’s sexual whims and demands; and while their lives seem to be made of the same cloth as your daily soap opera, these women’s lives are real and painfully true.

even when it’s not you or me, na nakakapit na sa patalim, stuck between a rock and a hard place, we must be able to imagine that woman. she who’s more than willing to batter the body and risk one’s life, instead of bringing out another unfed, malnourished baby into the world, and make life more difficult than it already is.

to forget that this is about women’s choices, their bodies and their lives, is to gloss over the fact that women - as much as the children - are victims of the current state of things, too. to forget the woman who is central to the reproductive health bill, is to imagine that we are all the same, that our bodies aren’t our own, that the Church can decide on our bodies for us.

anti-reproductive-health-bill advocates conveniently forget that some women have the luxury of choice and the capacity to spend on these choices. others can only imagine their choice to be among stealing formula milk for another newborn, throwing their pregnant selves down a flight of stairs, or leaving their newborns in a trashcan somewhere in the metro. at least give these women the choice to keep from getting pregnant to begin with. then we can truly say that we promote a culture of life. that we respect life - the child’s, the man’s and the woman’s. regardless of whether they’re rich or poor.

The past couple of weeks, Randy Santiago has been pinch hitting for host Willie Revillame on noontime gameshow Wowowee. Suffice it to say that it has been a breath of fresh air, a relief and respite from the kind of hosting that Revillame has been allowed to do on nationwide (worldwide!) television.

Because where the latter is abrasive and disrespectful of the show’s contestants, Santiago maintains an amount of compassion when dealing with Wowowee’s mass audience. Where Revillame would imagine it entertaining to poke fun at his co-hosts, the show’s contestants and audience members, Santiago’s kind of funny doesn’t even brink on bastos.

Without a doubt, Santiago proves that Revillame’s kind of comedy and hosting isn’t the only way to do a show like Wowowee. In fact, there’s no reason to do it the way Revillame does.

Because although Santiago also jokes around with the female co-hosts of the show, as well as the dancers in skimpy clothes, he is able to maintain a certain distance that dispels whatever sexist undertones the show’s format maintains to begin with. With Revillame, everything seems inappropriate, from his body language to the words he spews out without thinking them insulting.

With his penchant for drama, Revillame also likes reducing his contestants to tears, as he forces them to tell the stories of their lives - sad as these are, if not downright horrible. And yet more often than not, Revillame will respond with a punchline that pokes fun at what the contestant has gone through, or at what she looks like, how she sounds. It is here that Revillame always seems to be taking advantage of the contestants’ class origins, using it to illicit tears - and maybe money - from the richer members of the audience, or maybe to get higher ratings (who knows?).

Santiago, forced to stay within the show’s format, also asks about the contestants’ lives but with more sincerity, and responds to their stories with more compassion. There are no punchlines to be made here, and Santiago seamlessly segues onto the game that the contestant is joining in the hope of making her life better, instead of trying to illicit laughter about the sad story he has just heard.

In the process, what shines through is Santiago’s breeding - his sense of propriety in terms of dealing with the contestants and mass audience of the show, his notion of what’s funny and when to use it, and a keen sense of where he stands relative to the rest of the show. More often than not, Santiago pokes fun at himself, using as premise his own silliness instead of other people’s deficiencies.

It would do Revillame well, and the makers of Wowowee, to see the light. Santiago proves there’s much that can be done within the show’s format; that there’s no excuse to be abrasive or disrespectful for the sake of comedy or entertainment. And definitely no reason to romanticize - and make money out of - their mass audience’s stories of poverty.