The Correct Spelling of REMITTANCE

The entire Philippines was glued on watchting the Manny Pacquiao-Ricky Hatton fight last Sunday. While there were the privileged few who were able to watch on pay-per-view, internet streaming, and other exclusive commercial-free screenings, the rest of the country had no choice but to endure the agony of watching in a snippets of the fight on local TV. I chose the word "snippets" because the fight was bombarded with TV commercials in, I guess, one minute intervals or so.

One of the TV commercials flashed during the entire fight was the latest LBC TVC with Mr. Edu Manzano playing the role of a quiz master in a spelling bee tournament. He asked the question, "Spell remittance". The contestant, a boy who is portrayed to be a genius with his eyeglasses on, related the word to his personal experience when his OFW fathers sends remittance through LBC. This boy then blurts out, "Remittance, capital L-B-C!" To add to the horror of this ill-conceptualized TVC, Mr. Manzano agrees and says "Correct!". As a mother and a teacher, this TVC is very unacceptable! Here's a video of it from Youtube:



This TVC not only annoyed me and my husband but my eight-year old son as well. I am lucky somehow that my child is already matured enough to carefully scrutinize the messages that TVCs convey. How about the younger children whose TV viewings are not carefully regulated by caregivers? Let's face the fact. not all parents have the liberty of staying at home and looking after their children. Most kids nowadays are left to the care of yayas who do not regulate and supervise their TV viewing.

In the last few months, there have been other commercials that do not promote good values among our children. Examples of these are the Tide and Tang TV commercials. In the Tide TVC, gave the impression that pwede ang isa higit sa dalawa (1 can be greater than 2). On the other hand, the recent Tang TVC had a scene where the children said "Ay, tubig lang?" (Just water?) and preferred drinking juice instead of water.

Back in the eighties, we had better TVCs promoting Filipino values like love for family, bayanihan, respect for elders, and delicadeza. Why are there fewer TVCs being conceptualized like these at present?

Are there bodies in the advertising world who view and censor TVCs before they are finally shown to the public? If there are, then, why have these ill-conceptualized TVCs gained exposure in the boob tube?

I will not waste time in recommending measures to our local TV channels, the advertising people, and the celebrities who allow themselves to be cast in these types of TVCs. What's there to tell them? In their world, money is the name of the game!

As parents, we can just carefully supervise our kids' TV viewing. If these commercials are flashed on the screen, we can explain to our children that they shouldn't believe the messages being conveyed. We should also educate ouryaya especially when the kids are left with them most of the time. Vigilance is the key in this media-infested world.