Out of my mind

Why do we put up with it? Because reading is not prescribed and other forms of strenuous effort is disallowed (including sex, hehe), my choices of recreation and diversion has been limited to sitting up in bed (or in a couch) in front of the television set. Believe me it is difficult to spend more than 12 hours a day sleeping. I used to think that being able to catch up on my 40-year backlog in sleep would be bliss. But after more than a week of forced rest, sleeping has become such a bore. Anyway. Back to television. We do have cable TV at home, but I like to surf channels and sometimes curiousity just gets the better of me - I like finding out what our local creative people are up to lately. I am afraid there's really bad news. In the last week, I have been following some local teleseryes and boy, oh boy, are they just so.... stupid. Watching them is pure, unadultered torture. Since last week, I tried (yes, that is the operative term - tried, as in unsuccessfully) to watch...

This is my column today at the op-ed section of the Manila Standard Today. Television enables people— particularly candidates during an election—to reach more people faster and more efficiently. However, it also magnifies defects and can produce mixed results. Television can be a cruel medium. Because most households in this country own a television set, we already expected candidates for national positions to take their cause to the people via the idiot box. I guess what we did not expect was the level of gimmickry and absurdity that would be used in this effort. In an ideal world, our politicians should be harnessing the awesome power of this medium to convey their platforms and define who they are. Too bad our politicians seem more bent on entertaining us and showing off whatever miniscule talent they have in comedy, dancing, or acting. Thus, watching the first cuts of our politicians’ television ads is really anything but enlightening or educational. The current campaign ads are, a...