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| ON THE OTHER HAND |
| GMA-7: Saksi sa Kagaguhan? Or How the Anthrax Hysteria Became Hysterical By Antonio C. Abaya October 21, 2001 Mike Enriquez� and Vicki Morales� Saksi used to be the Tagalog TV newscast that I watched to get a feel of what news and information the masa were getting from their television sets. Not any more. Last Tuesday, October 16, in the midst of the anthrax scare that was scorching the US like a prairie fire, Saksi chose to give time and space to the silly concerns of someone whom they identified only as �Mang Dado�, with the added information that he was �a cousin of a senator.� �Mang Dado� had gone to GMA-7�s studio and reported that he had received an envelope in the mail from somewhere which he suspected contained anthrax. And what gave rise to his suspicion? At the back of the envelope was an apparently handwritten list of prominent people � George W. Bush, Lee Kwan Yew, Nelson Mandela, Bill Gates, Aung Sang Suu Kyi, etc � at the bottom of which was his, �Mang Dado�s� real name. �Mang Dado� said he was not sure why the envelope had been mailed to him but he suspected that everyone in the list, he included, had been sent anthrax. The TV camera then zoomed in on the envelope, which the TV people had inserted in a plastic envelope, presumably to protect everyone from contamination, and which they were careful to handle only with a pair of tweezers. As the offending envelope dangled from the tweezers, it slowly turned until its front faced the camera for one or two seconds, showing the name of its addressee, a Mr. E. P. Magsaysay, and his full address. So what was all the charade about, giving him a false identity? ***** I called up GMA-7 immediately and was connected to the girl who had received the envelope from �Mang Dado.� When I identified myself, she recognized me and began to unburden herself. Near tears, she said she had been praying the whole day because she had touched the envelope and was afraid that she too might have been infected with anthrax, etc. I assured the hysterical girl that there was nothing to be worried about, that I, too, had received a similar envelope, with my name under the list of prominent people, and so did thousands of other people in Metro Manila and elsewhere in the country, and that, after opening it and reading the contents, I had thrown it away as another piece of junk mail. I explained to her that what �Mang Dado� and I, and thousands of other people, had received was nothing more than a promotional gimmick from The Economist Magazine to solicit subscriptions. Putting your name in the same list with prominent people was supposed to make you feel important so that you would be enticed to buy a subscription. But the simpleton �Mang Dado� thought it was a terrorist plot against him. After my explanation and assurance, the girl told me she would pass on the information to the Saksi hosts. I waited and waited until the end of the program, but neither Mike nor Vicki made any acknowledgement of my telephone call. On the contrary, Mike cautioned his staff with a fatherly, �Mag-ingat kayo dyan, Jinky,� or whatever his name was, thus reinforcing the hysteria that he had caused by airing the simpleton�s silly concern, in the first place. Well, perhaps, tomorrow, I thought. But the next day, the Saksi hosts made no mention of my explanation the day before. On the contrary, they actually interviewed �Mang Dado�, his head hidden by a black electronic ball to cloak his identity again. It is not clear whether this was done to hide his embarrassment for making such a fuss over nothing, or he still thought he was under attack by terrorists. The point is that GMA-7 had made a monumental booboo and, although given the chance to correct themselves immediately after the booboo, chose to ignore the correction and instead went on to magnify the hysteria by giving added publicity to the simpleton �Mang Dado�, who should have been ignored in the first place. Not surprisingly, news stories in subsequent days told of similar anthrax scares in Negros, Subic, Isabela and, no doubt, other places, all involving the subscription promotion gimmick of The Economist Magazine, which must have caused peals of hysterical laughter in the magazine�s offices in London and Singapore as another example of the stupidity of Filipinos. ***** I narrated this incident in my radio program over Station DWIZ and recalled for my listeners that in the 1960s or 1970s, a brother of the late President Ramon Magsaysay, named Genaro or Gene, ran for and won a seat in the senate. Like Joseph Estrada after him, it became obvious soon enough that he was endowed with nothing more than the good name of his brother, and media quickly nicknamed him Tango. Tanga na, gago pa. Did �Mang Dado� perhaps inherit Gene�s genes? Just asking. ***** This article was submitted to the Philippine Weekly Graphic magazine but was not published. |