Halloween Television Pinoy Style

Photo Courtesy of geekus.org

As I write this article, I am currently watching GMA’s Halloween episode of SIS, that quirky talk-cum-variety show that grins its way on brunch; last night I was also able to catch some more celebrity talk shows observing their Halloween specials with interviews from ham actors and actresses with supposed “third eyes”, singers and dancers talking about creepy dreams that come true, hosts and hostesses going on “spirit quests”, and so on.The said talk shows invite these movie and telly celebrities all of them describing some sort of a personal supernatural story; how they saw a headless lady floating in the air, how a lost spirit of a dead child cried to them for help every night, or how they were possessed by that elemental spirit who fell in love with them. Jeez.

And the madness does not stop there; believe it or not, the nightly newscast--our last foundation of truth--also carried some sort of a ghost story, may it be an apparition in a picture (even if it is obviously a double exposure, some professional photographers do this deliberately), or some spirit caught on film; all play around on the ignorant minds of Filipino viewers nationwide.

As I watch the clueless female hosts go on their so-called “Cemetery Tour” wherein they apparently walk aqround in a public cemetery hoping to come in contact with “spirits” of the dead, I cannot help but laugh, scoff, and ridicule at these TV shows which glorify such silliness and inanity. Now, does anybody ever wonder why the Filipino mindset is still trapped in the dark ages? All the while I thought that witch hunts were exclusively 16th century just as believing in ghosts were a fad in the 19th and early 20th century. I thought that interest in the supernatural came and went like puberty; a stage of curiosity in the life of a child. I remeber I became interested in ghosts when I was in third grade; my classmates and I bravely stalked kindergarten classrooms after hours with a flashlight in hand. When I reached High School, I became quite sure that ghosts, spirits, vampires, and such were made up by parents to scare their naughty children into submission.

And that was it. I grew up and left my beliefs in spirits and monsters within the forgotten pages of my childhood. I wonder though, why many of them celebrities never outgrew them. The pursuit of high ratings can be the only reason for this, and we all know the networks’ willingness to lower the aptitude level of audiences everywhere for the sake of it; to Hell with social responsibilty. This goes to show that the Filipino logic never really reached maturity at all.

Isn’t it finally time to leave the darkness of the Middle Ages? When can we finally put to rest those poor ‘souls’ of the dead that we use for the sake of high ratings and profit? If some people find these ghosts and monsters fascinatingly real, I sure do hope that there are more people who find it all insultingly painful to their intelligence.

Let us all hope that these spirits remain unreal. If by chance all the mumbo-jumbo these TV shows play around with were true, I pray to your holy high heavens guy up there that they do not seek revenge on all of those who used them for profit.