Primetime Series Making it to the News - Reflection on the Kris-Joey Scandal

Kris Aquino. Presidential daughter. Celebrity. Game and talk show host.

Joey Marquez. Mayor of Parañaque City. Celebrity.

The two mentioned above are big names in the Philippines. Both are in show business. Both are in politics. Though Kris is not directly involved with politics, somehow, she is, indirectly. It all started some time during the previous semester. Kris surprised every Filipino not only in the country, but also others far away from home, by filing a complaint against Joey, who was at that time and known to everyone her lover. It said in the news that she was filing a complaint against him because she threatened him and put a gun to her face.

It was, indeed, the start of a tragic, yet colorful telenovela. The media and the press knew perfectly well that it would be feasted upon by everyone, especially nosy Filipinos who love nothing more than knowing what the latest in showbiz is. They knew exactly what to do, and they did it. Every television channel you switch to was airing details and updates about the scandal. ABS-CBN was airing Kris’s side of the story, and GMA 7 Joey’s. The other television channels were airing perhaps a mix of both. It was not like the whole thing was important. But they didn’t care, as long as it’s hot, or so they thought, for the Filipino audience. They would do anything to catch the audience’s attention. The air time they should have taken for news about what’s happening to the country’s economic status and political disarray went to the controversial celebrity clash. But no one cares about that gobbledygook about our economy and politics, after all. What’s happening in showbiz is way more appealing to the typical Filipino than who in the Presidential Cabinet is going to get fired and who’s going to be appointed next, or by how many dollars the stock market has deflated during the last 24 hours, anyway. With this, the news programs of each network totally forgot the essence of their existence. During that period of complete showbiz chaos, the daily news programs apparently morphed into daily talk shows, like that weekly Buzz show Kris was hosting.

Ratings. More ratings. More advertisers. More money. Yes, that’s what television networks only care[d] about.

Then came the press alongside the media. Day by day, the newspapers would come up with a new issue on the scandal. More updates, more stories, more opinions, and more versions spread through the print media. What is surprising about this is that not only the tabloids, but also the broadsheets, like the Philippine Daily Inquirer which had gained such leadership and reputation, feverishly published news about this matter. We expected better of them. Well, at the very least, I did.

Feminists also came into the scene. They fought for Kris’s rights as a woman. They were blabbing about this whole domestic violence thing and that it shouldn’t be permitted. They thought of Kris a strong woman who had more than enough courage to let the whole world know that she had STD and been battered by her lover. And the Filipino audience believed it. Some, though not really on Kris’s side, suddenly sympathized with her upon realizing the “twist” or the subplot this prrimetime-telenovela-on-the-news had for them.

The whole feminism issue is totally coincidental. It was, as far as I know, just a coincidence. The feminist groups going for Kris only accidentally found out something that would clean Kris’s name of being someone “dirty” or an unconventional woman, and make the audiences switch sides. It’s a cool twist, though not cool enough to make the whole scandal worthy of making it to the broadsheet and broadcast headlines.

Now, the craze over the scandal has died, and the press and media no longer concerned with it anymore. I am, in a way, thankful, that we don’t have to endure a 30-minute showbiz update broadcast just to get 15 minutes of tiny bits of what’s going on outside, in the real world, while watching 6-o-clock news programs.