After the dreadful wowowee stampede tragedy, I wondered if that many people would have shown up at the Ultra and if they would have fought as hard to get in if it were jobs being given away instead of money.
I asked two friends who answered ‘OF COURSE’ with heartfelt conviction.
I wasn’t so confident. To be quite blunt about it, I was convinced they would have just stayed home and watched the other noontime show. I really hoped I was wrong though.
Over lunch today, my boss told us about a conversation he had with an ABS CBN employee. He said that a few months back, the network decided to have an alternative activity for the hundreds of hopefuls who had to be turned away everyday because of the studio’s limited space. So one day, they gathered the ‘excess’- a number that came close to a hundred – and invited them to lunch and a free seminar on livelihood programs that can help them make money.
All stayed for the free lunch.
Three stayed for the free seminar.
I was really hoping I was wrong.
How did we end up here? a world where Willie Revillame is messiah to thousands who flock to him begging for a buck. Under his inept choreography, they dance and they sing and they raise their arms in the air desperate to catch his merciful eye. The studio is transformed into a church and Wowowee becomes a religion.
And what is religion without prayer.
And what is prayer without drama.
And so we see grown men weep, able people plead – howling about the tuition they can’t pay, the medicines they can’t afford, and the jobs they can’t find. They tell us, with certainty, that this is their last hope. That, if this fails, they might as well just shrivel up and die.
WOWOWEE!!!
I never knew that one TV show could have so much power. That the lives of thousands of people literally depend on one show.
And so I wonder, how can we solve anything if we’re too busy singing boom tarat tarat? If we keep this up, this country will end up exactly like how the song ends.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
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