Reposted from Portia Carlos' notes on Facebook.
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For years now, each time a political situation arises, you can be sure that you'll find ABS-CBN at our house to interview my mom. Sometimes she would even be asked to go to the studio to appear in ANC shows. For these, she would be given a box of doughnuts every now and then as a token. Even so, she would always make an effort to accommodate their requests for interviews. This she does not so she could be seen or heard on TV (she doesn't even fix herself when interviewed! minsan nga naka slippers lang sha), but to give light on political matters.
Recently, my mom was asked by the network to analyze the elections from 4:30am to 12noon. When she asked for a TOR (for being asked to render 7.5 hours of work analyzing the elections), a source said that a network staff exclaimed "Sino ba sha? Kung artista nga di nagpapabayad?". Then go ahead and ask an artista to analyze the elections! No offense to artistas, but my mom is what she is today as a result of decades of studying and honing her craft!
Here is what my mom says about the issue:
"There is , indeed, something wrong with our society which pays the likes of Revillame the huge sum of P1Million a day and could hardly give a glass of water to an academic ( like me and many others) who have toiled all their 45 years of their professional lives writing, teaching, reading and honing their craft as scholars. In the first Gulf War, for instance, the military analyst at CNN names Gen Clark(?) was paid US$330,000 for saying exactly the same things I was saying here in the Philippines. The only difference? I was paid ZILCH and was money out because I paid for my taxi to go to the TV station...ano ba yan??
In another instance, a visiting European scholar was invited here and we tandemned in a lecture/discussion somewhere in Mindanao. Evidently, since I was a local scholar, I had a better handle on our politics so he was not able to answer many questions during open forum. Guess how much he was paid in honoraria? Reportedly. a whopping US$10,000 and me? A tiny P20,000! hello!!!
Of course, the only reason we allow ourselves to be interviewed is not to plaster our unmade-up faces on TV but to correct the many mediocrities and strange stories which so called analysts spin as they try to sound "learned"by interpreting survey numbers, for instance...yikes
It isn't money qua money...it is how much value ( or the lack of it) these networks put on the professional work of academics whom they interview. It's fine if it's just a few minutes of about once a month but to ask you to render 8 hours of work analysing elections and promises to give you a token, like 6 pieces of doughnut...hey, there is something so dreadfully wrong here..."
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And we wonder why the Philippines is in the state it's in.
Here's the
link to the article.
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