Your Pinoy Soap

It’s Thursday night. Once again I am playing Minesweeper while Mai (Ippo’s yaya) is switching channels in between commercials.

Every night, there’s a battle between channel 7 and channel 2 in our living room. My mom favors Bakekang and the rest of the channel 7 soaps. Mai likes Sana Maulit Muli and that soap with Bea and John Lloyd. If you ask me, I’ve always loved channel 7 since I was a kid. Right now though, I don’t like any of the soaps in Kapuso, so I pay more attention to the television when Kapamilya is on during prime time.

Sana Maulit Muli is on right now. The entire nation, plus the TFC subscribers all over the world just found out that Jasmine and Camille are sisters. Why does this not surprise me? On every Pinoy soap, the protagonist is always secretly related to another character. Just the other day, I learned that John Lloyd and Sam Milby are related (first cousins in Maging Sino Ka Man, if I’m not mistaken).

If the lead is not secretly related to the villain or whoever, there’s always an adoption, or some baby switching going on. This afternoon, I saw channel 7’s newest daytime delight, Princess Charming. Apparently, the ugly Charming is the real daughter of rich Carmina Villaroel. Carmina’s superstitious mother-in-law bought another baby in the hospital (Princess) because a fortune-teller warned her that Charming will bring bad luck to their family. There goes your baby swapping. Goodness, does this happen in real life?

And need I mention the rich girl-poor boy (or poor girl-rich boy) love story? The love story that will always involve a triangle, a quad or partner-swapping. This is just my opinion, but in real life, the rich are rarely in contact with the poor, so where’s the opportunity to fall in love here? And I don’t know of a haciendera who fell madly in love with her gardener in my circle. I think it would be more real to write a story about a young Filipina who becomes infatuated with an American correspondent or a “chat-mate.”

Soap plots are just so predictable. I’m sure the producers do research and hire talented writers. They must already know that they are presenting the same dish over and over again. They seem to be following a formula to ensure viewer patronage. I just wish that they could be bolder by trying out something more realistic. Viewers just might enjoy it. If they’re worried that viewers won’t buy it, then they should get a power house cast. After all, Pinoys are known to be smitten by stars. That should influence their ratings.

I’m only asking for them to give the sensible Pinoy a break and make better plots.

Written on Feb-8