Ang K-9 ay Aso, ang K-12 ay DepEd

By MORTZ C. ORTIGOZA

Dahil pasukan na naman sa eskuela, naala-ala ko tuloy ang interbyu ko sa isang Superintendent ng Department of Education na may hawak ng almost 10, 000 teachers sa kanyang jurisdiction.

Kasama ko si namayapang Max na reporter ng radio na ganito ang kinahahantungan ng interbyu namin sa nasabing DepEd’s bigwig:

MORTZ:  Maam, ano na ang pinagkaka-abalahan ng DepEd ninyo ngayong pasukan na naman?

SUPT.: Ito, inaayos namin ng mga supervisors at principals ko ang K-12.

MAX: K-12 madam? Kelan pa pinasukan ng Dep Ed ang mga aso? Akala ko pagtuturo sa mga bata ang pangunahing layunin at inaatupag ng Dep Ed?

SUPT.: Ikaw talaga Max! Hindi K-12 iyong ibig mong sabihin K-9 iyon! Iyan ang ginagamit ng PSG (Presidential Security Group) na aso na muntik ng makagat ang reporters na si Atong, Ronnel, at Harold dahil wala silang presidential media coverage I.D noong dumating dito si President Aquino.

Ipagpaumanhin po ninyo ang anecdote ko sa the late Max (Ilokanong magaling mag Bisaya na katsukaran ko) dahil naala-ala ko ang laughing value ng napanu-od ko na Miss Gay sa YouTube sa pelikulang Bekikang na ni direct ng mahusay na kababayan kong Ilonggong Director na  beki rin na si Wen Deramas (I seldom watch Filipino flicks Direk since ang cable-TV namin may diperensiya kaya puro Russian shows ang lumalabas) na kung saan ang style ng kanyang mga box office hits could be likened to the bastardized Scary Movies, Naked Guns and Gods Must be Crazy.

HOST IN THE MISS GAY: Experts said if the Filipinos want to be globally competitive the government should introduce K-12 to its education system. What’s your STAND on K-12?

BADING (na kamukha ni Barok sa Hiwaga Komik na sobrang nerbiyos kasi nose-bleed English ang tanong): What’s my stand? I don’t want to stand, I want to seat! I don’t like K-2 neither K-12, what I liked is K-9 Dog Style. Thank you!

K-9 Dog and a tot

Diyos Mio, nag riot po ang mga ta-o sapalakpakan at pag indak ng kanilang pa-a dahil sa galing ng Bading na kamukha nila Flintstones.

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By the way, bago pala ako makapasok sa division Office ng DepEd, pinilit pa ako ng the Late Max hindi dahil sa late ako kung hindi dahil  galit nag alit sa akin ang mga big wigs doon.

“Halika ka na Mortz, pumasok ka na sa loob. Gusto ka daw makausap ni madam at ni sir (Assistant Superintendent).

Noong nasa loob na ako nangi-nginig sa galit si Superintendent at Assistant Superintendent sa akin.

SUPT: Bakit mo kami binibira dito sa DepEd? Baka gusto mong ma libel case ulit?

ASST. SUPT: Oo, ide-demanda ka namin ng libel. Bakit mo sinasabi sa column at nababasa sa internet ng mga kamag anak at kaibigan ko sa abroad na bading ako?

MORTZ: Sir huwag naman kayo magalit sa akin. Pinasasabi lang ni Mr. X na kasama ninyong supervisor na magkasama daw kayong nanghahabol ng mga lalaki sa plaza pag gabi.

Tuwang tuwa ang matabang matron- looking na madam sa sinabi kung katotohanan dahil hindi siya makapaniwala na ang matipunong assistant niya ay isang miyembro pala ng FMLP o Federasyon ng Mang-aagaw ng Lakas sa Pilipinas pag sumapit na ang gabi lalo na pag maliwanag ang buwan.

Mag mula noon naging best of friends na kami ni Superintendent. Malayo pa lang ako natataranta na siyang sumisigaw sa mga staff niya na bumili na ng palamig at kakanin habang  nag hahanda akong i-interview ko siya o ng mga kasama ko.

***

It was unfortunate that the Dagupan City based 89.3 DWIC of the Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Inc. - an FM station in an AM format – folded and returned to its former format.

“What happened?” I posed to some folks when they told me about it.  “Should Ambassador Antonio Cabangon-Chua need that AM format to attack the administration of  Dagupan City Mayor Belen T. Fernandez to further his business interest in the city?” I continued to ask.

They told me the management put the coup’d-grace on the broadcasting style because it did not earn revenues the way its FM format has been earning from the youngsters who patronized the musical programs of the station.

With the Supreme Court decision that the disputed sale of the former three-star McAdore Hotel better be decided by the Regional Trial Court at Quezon City instead of the “friendly to the power-that-be?” RTC in Dagupan City, was it the reason that prompted the former ambassador to unplug the station that was in the red already?

With the case at the hands of a perceptibly more independent RTC in Quezon City to decide the Declaratory Relief case on the decision of the members of the city council under then Mayor Benjie S. Lim administration, is it “whither DWIC” and “whither too to those reporters working with the defunct AM format station that went to the red.

Was it really withered to the broadcasters there?

I ain’t think so. Although some if not many of them could not go back to Aksyon Radyo-Pangasinan (DWCM) where they have differences with the management there (remember those former mayor Benjie S. Lim and incumbent Mayor Fernandez factions?) to another station DWPR as commentators or reporters of some programs and block time there. However their jumping of ship depends upon the management there that is under the behest of the Cojuangcos who owned the station.

Oh by the way, when I bumped recently at the office of Pangasinan’s Provincial Police Office Director Raymond Sterling Blanco with RJ Jimenez of the DWIC he told me they (his fellow reporters) would be back on air in the same station but with Orly Navarro as the manager. He said Allan Sison, the former manager, would still be part of the show. 

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I could not forget some friendly exchanges year ago with broadcasters, including those some from DWIC, on the poser: Who’s the most respected and feared broadcaster, blogger, or columnist?

A broadcaster brags that a lot of people listen to them, columnist boasts that if the person a broadcaster wants to ingratiate fails to listen on the particular time his P.R stuff goes pfft, while a columnist even if he wrote the article a week ago can still asks somebody to show to the person his “opus”, while the blogger  whose article can be publish in a click of finger for literally the world to see unlike a columnist who has to wait for his paper to be printed by a snail paces printing press while a blogger can just post in his blog and send the attack article on the community page in Face Book or others that is read globally to denigrate the person he wants to expose.

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Funny, but hold your horses guys. Here’s an excerpts in Page 29 of the book NightLine by former U.S TV icon Ted Koppel (the boss of Dan Rather that I wrote in my column two weeks ago) who was devastated when he was scorched by Tom Shales, a famous TV columnist-critic of the right wing American newspaper Washington Post, after NightLine changed its format, just liked DWIC’s of Cabangon-Chua, from the Iranian hostage crises in  1979 as it nears its solution for the release of the hostages.

ABC TV’s management and Koppel wanted to continue the show with an incisive format that focus on the variety of news and not just the hostage crises.

Tom Shales assailed the new format on his column On the Air and here’s some of the brutal excerpts:

“As for the program, it represents at best a great leap sideways and worst a pratfall backwards for network news“

“Of course, it wasn’t really news at all. It was new news, neo-news, pseudo-news, a sugary news substitute. Newsohol. In fact the program was produced like an entertainment show, starting with a dizzy, busy, outer-space motif at the outset….”

When Koppel called Shales in the phone he told him how unfair and untimely was his comment as the program was one day old. Shales told him that it was his editor who frantically ordered him to critique it but told Ted he would review the NightLine in six months.

Here’s how Shales saw the TV show after six months and please look at the italicized words I emphasized to show how superior Shales command of the English language, his rumors, and rhyme:

“The man most responsible for the success of “ABC News NightLine” is the Ayatollah Khomeni.

The man second most responsible is Ted Koppel. If not for the hostage crisis and ABC’s commitment to broadcast nightly reports on it. “Nightline” would perhaps never have become a permanent network fixture, as it did last March. This week it expanded from 20 to 30 minutes, and in April goes from four nights a week to five.

This man  Koppel-short, pugnacious, cocky, droll, 40- has helped pull off a double garbanzo: first that a news show would give Johnny Carson a run for the late- night ratings (occasionally beating him, never getting creamed by him) and second that ABC News of all News would come up with a broadcast this smart, classy, and relatively shlockless.

“Nightline” represents the most successful programming initiative in ABC News history. Executive producer William Lord can take bows, but Koppel gets a medal. He’s moved to front and center of network news.

He’s smoothie. He’s a pro. He’s a rocket. What makes “Nightline” click is Koppel’s bull’s- eye-interviewing style, a verbal and rhetorical combination of Sugar Ray Leonard and Mikhail Baryshnikov – a succession of jabs, rejoinders and judicious-to-delicious interruptions: Koppel a cappella”.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too attotomortz@yahoo.com).