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Letter to Manny Pangilinan
by John Silva on Wednesday, 30 March 2011 at 13:45
Mr. Manny Pangilinan
Chairman
PLDT
Manila
Dear Mr. Pangilinan,
What’s befuddling about this Jan-Jan incident is you.
You run a fairly sizeable empire, created wealth and jobs, feted and awarded as a management genius and could ride out the next decade as statesman, philanthropist and businessman extraordinaire.
Yet, you also have a television station with a reviled noontime show host who through the years demeaned the poor by dangling money and promoting begging and at one point causing a stampede killing 74 women and children. Other Willie Revillame daily fare has been to insult women and do anti-gay buffoonery. And now this host coaxes a young crying boy named Jan-Jan to dance like a male stripper and get 10K that either came from your company or from sponsors.
There seems to be a disconnect here. You have all these income streams, the envy of many companies here and abroad and yet, there’s one, probably not even profitable at this point, that secures corporate sponsorship and charges air time to get an audience hooting and howling over sick and lewd contests.
You’re urbane and probably like me have gone to a strip show at some point. If you haven’t, I’ll tell you that it’s not really much fun being in seedy places and the guys or gals on stage are going through the motions of looking sexy but if anyone had a scintilla of compassion can catch glimpses of humiliation through the hubris.
So what made your producers and Willie think this was going to be fun for a six-year old boy? At that age, he could only cry.
The only other country that does this sordid thing is Afghanistan where fundamentalist Taliban men coax their boy lovers to dance or get beaten up and killed if they don’t do it well. At least we are not at that stage yet but could if this filth continues.
So, I’m back to wondering, if you seemingly have the wherewithal to make your companies profitable here and in the region, doing it the old Capitalist way, why do you have to stoop down to make money by mimicking the sleaze of strip show and massage parlor owners? Why do you make your well-paid host come out looking like a pimp? And why must an under-aged traumatized boy be used? Don’t your TV producers have the slightest clue that such use constitutes child abuse? Are you hiring intelligent people? And can they explain to you how their sick and disgusting show material contribute to the well-being of our nation? Or at the least, just your well-being and stature?
You can wind down your career and go offstage being adulated and remembered for making progress for our country. But in the cultural upliftment realm, your Revillame show sullies everything you want to be fondly remembered. In fact, at this point, I find your decision to revive a pathetic TV show that insults people and a nation, for the purpose of making money, obnoxious and abominable. I will encourage people not to patronize any of your products and services as well as those companies that patronize that show for so long as it continues to air.
Given the firestorm out there, Revillame is now your costly nightmare. Drop him, revive your good standing and bring decency, self-respect, and pride among our people, especially our children.
Sincerely,
John L. Silva
1 comment:
Go John. No one else tells it like you can. On behalf of those oppressed by the powerful in this country, thank you for standing up to this person.
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