Genuine horror stories

Help!  My brain has again been addled by both ABS-CBN and GMA-7!

            Six days into our undas break here in Isabela and with only these two channels on TV, I have no choice but to rely on these rival networks for news.  What do I get?  Forty-five minutes of ghost stories in an hour-long program, ranging from maldeveloped pictures that show “spirits” and fantastic Angela Jones stories about almost being raped by a ghost when she was 14.

Last night, GMA’s early night news program 24-Oras interviewed a guy claiming to have an open “third eye.”  This loser looks around and says he sees a ghost near a trash bin on a walkway full of people.  It isn’t enough that Mike Enriquez delivers the news like a clown he is and Mel Tianco (Ti-yan Ko) asks the most inane questions.  Not to be outdone, ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol World wasted precious broadcast minutes on Aubrey Miles’ Paris Hilton costume for a halloween party.  In both their live reports in cemeteries, the networks’ stories are almost always about famous dead people buried there.  Puro salsal na trabaho.

Give me a break!

GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK!

Where has straight news reportage and straight news reading gone?  Is ABC 5 the only sane free uhf television station remaining in this country?  Unfortunately for the entire Filipino people, ABC-5 is so poor it can’t broadcast beyond Novaliches, Quezon City.  (As a point of comparison for my legions of foreign readers, both ABS-CBN and GMA are like Fox News Channel on stupid mode.  Wait, isn’t that redundant?)

Nagmamagaling na lang din naman ako, if I were one of these two networks’ reporters, what would I file as my undas reports?  First, I would look for the families of gloria’s victims of extrajudicial killings and file a story about what they feel and how they celebrate All Souls Day.  There are 880 of them, none of whom have gotten justice yet.  Second, I would look for the families of arroyo’s victims of enforced disappearances and file a story about their wish to have at least a grave to visit for their missing loved ones when they already know deep in their hearts the victims are already dead.  There are 188 of them. 

These are true horror stories.  These are true stories that make our blood curdle. These are true stories that should haunt us. And these are true stories that must be broadcast to give perspective to where this country is now under gma.