How Teleseryes Kept Many Filipinos In The Dark For A Very Long Time

Well I haven't written a post on teleseryes for a long time, haven't I? I was thinking about the "perfect time" to write another teleserye post -- what better day than on Shaina Magdayao's birthday (and this is a very "loving present" considering that she's currently one of ABiaS-CBN's "darling stars". I thought why merely focus on "The Worse Half" (Better Half) or Asintado when I could talk about the impact that it had since the 90s and the ruin it actually brought to Filipinos by keeping them in the dark for some time.

How did the teleseryes did help ABiaS-CBN (and in extension GMA-7) in keeping Filipinos in the dark? Aside from ABiaS-CBN's one-sided, biased reporting (while saying that they're supposedly not siding with anyone) -- teleseryes are a perfect weapon of Mass Distraction. You can check the topics related to teleseryes too -- they are always filled with so much brainless plots. You've got the problem of playing the victim done too many times. You may have the idea that it's okay to date a bad boy even if he's poor -- because his poverty supposedly "justifies" his behavior. You can have a lot of idiotic plots where you're too focused on plots that you get to talk a lot about in gossip shows such as the usual extramarital affair plot or well just anything brainless.

I remembered the time there was the obsession of Mula Sa Puso (which had a 2011 remake) and Esperanza. I remembered how the craze was there because of all the "crying scenes" and how it was a "good story". I remembered how often people skipped doing their duties such as house cleaning and homework just to watch those idiotic nightly teleseryes. If you're an 80s baby and 90s child then you may remember how LONG it was -- 538 long episodes of pure plotless stupidity! Sure, I could commend Princess Punzalan's good acting skills (and she's a really nice person in real life) but that doesn't help the fact that the WHOLE story was a plot of a mess!

There was one time in my high school (and in extension) college life where the teacher would say, "Why don't you let the manager of ABS-CBN help you if you fail?" kind of talk. The reason behind it is because of the obsession with the nightly teleserye. It almost reminded me of a Piolo Pascual/Kris Aquino or whatever-obsessed classmate of mine in college where she used the nightly teleseryes as an excuse not to do her job. She even lied that she would need them to "help her recover" from whatever sickness she had. It's really amazing how the teleserye culture ends up with that the next day in school talks about last night's teleserye instead of the upcoming lessons.

Not to mention, there's also the anti-elite mindset present in these teleseryes never mind that ABiaS-CBN and GMA-7 are part of the elite themselves! I guess they know that they can continue to manipulate and power themselves up if they feed on anti-elite mentality. I could remember the typical plot of where rich girl falls for poor bad boy is now often played too many times -- even glorified as proper! There's always the "because we're poor and we're bullied" victim card playing. This may have also contributed to people who do nothing but whine, envy the rich and foster an anti-elite mentality while the dirty oligarchy continues to win against them because they are kept ignorant. Worse, you may even have the problem of celebrating poverty (where they tend to believe that the rich owe them something) where they think it's better to be poor because becoming rich is evil -- while they ironically get fed nonsense by the rich or that they desire high branded items (such as the recent i-Phone XS which I think is too pricey for my needs even when I could afford one without a loan) that wouldn't exist if the elite didn't exist either!

Then it comes to this problem that local Filipino networks can't rely on teleseryes to keep themselves going. Why do you think that they are showing badly dubbed imported non-English shows? It's because the teleserye audience may no longer be as huge as it used to during the 90s to 2000s. We're in the 2010s and we're close to the the start of the 2020s era. The digital age is already here and even if they put the lousy teleseryes on i-Flix or Netflix -- I doubt it it'd get such an audience except for the impoverished sector. Just think Kris Aquino the once proud teleserye queen is getting more irrelevant by the moment. Besides, this fact may even be the reason why the proposal to ban Filipinos from bringing home imported media was trashed so soon -- it's probably because the teleseryes are becoming more and more irrelevant. It may only be a matter of time before teleseryes will die so soon as it seems more Filipinos are now becoming more informed and educated!