as mentioned on the closing part of my last entry, manny pacquiao again took to the world stage and showed he is the top dog in his division.  and while the whole nation was united–even for just a couple of hours–amidst a scandal-weary, violence-marred, insult-thrown society, another tragedy occured.  this time, it was not behind the pacquiao-chanting public while the fight was in progress, but right under their noses.  i'm referring to the robbery done by the advertisers and the local network that aired the fight "live via satellite."

while it was a given that a mega-buck fight such as the pacquiao-barrera tussle part two would have local advertisers literally have peso signs as eyeballs, nothing as preposterous and unheard of happened at yesterday's telecast.  compared to pacquiao's previous fights where all is said and done at around 1:30-2:00PM local time and everyone is already going back to their normal lives (mind you, those telecasts were already loaded with 10-minute commercials of hog and rooster feeds and dewormers, paints and roof sealants in-between rounds, most of which only get to be shown during boxing matches for reasons that i couldn't fathom why), yesterday's event lasted until 4PM!  okay, it is also given that the match went the whole 12 rounds–a rarity in pacquiao fights–even so, the network that carried the telecast should've known better than to salivate with revenue from advertisers and could've shorten the in-between rounds of shoving images of piglets and leaky rooftops down our throats and just show the damn fight!  for god's sakes, i even received a breaking news through sms from a major newspaper about who won the fight and how it was won even before the singing of the national anthems on the telecast!  and while i elected to stay up and still watch the fight after coming from work even after reading the sms alert, i felt very sleepy towards round seven and lost my enthusiasm and instead was overcome with relief when the split decision was announced.  heck, the chinese formula one grand prix aired on star sports that started live at 1PM even ended ahead of the pacquiao fight!  what kind of bullshit telecast were we given?!

if you think i'm alone in what i views, you're dead wrong.  thousands of our countrymen also felt robbed by those greedy network and advertising slobs (and they have the nerve to call themselves executives).  while i understand the need to make money, it shouldn't be at the expense of a nation reeling from being insulted and degraded by US TV shows (of all places, although which i don't agree with the majority's sentiments), and is hungry for being one with the crowd inside the mandalay bay cheering with every punch our fighting champion landed on his opponent.  at least once in very, very  few instances, why could'nt be something as big an event such as this be brought to the simple households with minimal advertisements?  and why do networks lock or ban cable operators from broadcasting the fight on another cable channel that shows the same fight to other countries in real time?  what gives them the right to hold cable tv subscribers hostage by forcing them to watch the local telecast on free tv?  this kind of thinking is absolutely greedy and self-serving.

while we can't change the mindset of those gluttonous advertiser-slobs (thank god i'm not in that field), an appeal to change can be made to the network itself.  so to GMA 7, first and foremost, your telecast of the fight yesterday was the worst–if not one of the worst–telecasts you've ever made.  you say you're the number one network in the country that provides the best programming and service to our countrymen, and yet in the event yesterday, you only thought of yourselves and succumbed to the piles and piles of money given to you by the adveritisers.  in the face of "insults" and "racial slurs" made by US TV programs and networks, you yourselves committed the greatest insult by denying the filipino people in our own homeland their right to join other filipinos around the globe in watching national pride being displayed to the world.  you should be ashamed of yourselves and should be the one issuing a public apology to the entire country for this dastardly act.  an exercise in discretion in favor of the viewing public by cutting commerial time was the simplest thing you could've done in the face of pressure from your so-called "loyal" advertisers.  hopefully, this would be the first and last such mistake you would ever make should you ever be assigned to carry more of manny pacquiao's prized bouts in the future.  and the same goes to all networks wanting a piece of the pie, so to speak.  remember that without the viewing public, your institution wouldn't be where it should be.

'nuff said.  now it's back to our normal lives, and i'm back to hating manny pacquiao doing the kind of stuff he's doing outside the boxing ring. i was openly offering wagers to some people at the office yesterday with me siding with barrera, but there were no takers.  although i know pacquiao would win, i was hoping for a barrera upset to make him go back to earth.  oh well, i guess whether he wins or loses, he still has ara mina to bang when he comes home.  lucky bastard…