The Shameless Killing of ABS-CBN
So this hideous government finally shut ABS-CBN down, for “possible” and “apparent,” (both the congressmen’s words) violations, meaning the culpability of the network wasn’t really established, and all these violations could be settled with the courts, but still those repugnant congressmen decided to close the network, effectively rendering thousands of people without livelihood—during a pandemic when companies all over are closing down and people are starving.
Plain evil.
The issue is a tiny bit personal to me because I had the opportunity to work for ABS-CBN as a freelance writer. I worked on three projects (all teleserye), one got abolished before it could really take off, the second, we'd finished all the pre-requisite works (meaning, all-night meetings, brainstorming) and we only needed the lead actor (a very famous action star) to sign the contract so we could proceed writing the scripts. The head writer would write the pilot and I would handle the second episode. We had broken down the scenes for the few first episodes so it would be quite easy-peasy. But bummer of all bummers, the lead actor (whose wish to have a movie project together with the teleserye wasn’t granted, we were told) backed out of the project and instead signed up with the rival network. The project was put on hold and we moved on to another project, a local superhero teleserye, we did the obligatory all-night meetings, brainstorming, tong-its playing) but before we could start writing the scripts, I was eased out of the project, didn’t know why. Anyway, I was expecting to be called for another project, which, alas, never happened, because my head writer friend, my contact in the network, died unexpectedly.
Well, I shrugged then, I wasn’t probably made for TV. I
didn’t like the working process, anyway, the endless meetings, many of them an
all-nighter, some fruitful, most of the time fruitless, there'd be 24-hour meetings, and I didn’t like that they almost
owned all your time as you could be summoned anytime. I was writing regularly for a publishing house then. And small peeve, lots of TV peeps smoked then, (I didn't and don’t smoke), so there'd be second-hand
smoke galore in every meeting held in a house, and you were almost always on your
toes during the meeting, in the house or in the company building, especially when a topnotch director or a big shot executive was in attendance, you'd need to have very good ideas and you have to articulate
and defend them well, which really was a problem when you weren't really a quick thinker and a good
public speaker. And I really am comfortable when I work alone. And also, the
prevalence of gays among male writers there didn’t inspire me. I’m not
homophobic, don’t get me wrong, but you’d be presenting an idea about a strong male character and your gay co-writer
would suggest, “why not make him a secret thong-wearing gay diva?” Only consolations
are up close incidents with the stars, like Kris Aquino sans makeup scolding
some people beside you, or this and that pretty celebrity smiling at you inside
the elevator. Lol. But the people I had the chance to work with then were all nice.
Incidentally, before I got called to work for the network, I joined their script writing contest (The 3rd Star Cinema Script Writing Contest and became a finalist out of I-don’t-know-how-many participants. Received a glass plaque for it, probably would’ve won it if only I didn’t make my script truly depressing. Lol.
I just hope the network could bounce back from this debacle.
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