Filipino TV show goes off air over crying child

[April 11, 2011]  MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- The Philippines' most popular TV game show was pulled off the air Monday amid a public uproar over the host letting a crying 6-year-old boy mimic a striptease dancer.

"Willing Willie" host Willie Revillame said he was taking two weeks of leave after which he will announce if he'll return to television.

Angry viewers and commentators have launched a campaign on social-networking sites to remove Revillame from the show, which offers cash prizes for singing, dancing, storytelling and playing games. They say Revillame showed poor taste and mocked his mostly impoverished viewers by allowing the crying boy to gyrate as a striptease dancer.

The boy was a contestant and earned 10,000 pesos ($230) for his dance.

The outcry led major sponsors to pull out, including Procter & Gamble Co., Del Monte Pacific Ltd., Unilever and Philippine fast-food giant Jollibee Foods Corp. The March 12 episode also has prompted soul-searching discussions about the quality of TV entertainment in the Philippines.

TV5 network said it wants to improve the program and work with television and advertising industry stakeholders on guidelines for the participation of children in all game and reality TV shows.

Philippine-born theater actress Monique Wilson, in a widely circulated email carried by local media, argued that such TV shows "dumb down audiences (and) disempower them by creating a mendicant society with game shows that promise 'quick money."'

Benjamin Pimentel, a U.S.-based columnist for Inquirer.net, the online edition of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, criticized Revillame for "shining a harsh, cruel spotlight" on poverty "for cheap laughs and for ratings."

Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman last month condemned "the emotional abuse and humiliation" the boy suffered and said the program violated a law against child abuse.

It was not clear if Revillame and TV5 will face charges. The government's Commission on Human Rights and the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board said they were investigating.

Revillame has apologized but said his detractors had mounted a campaign "until they bury me alive." He blamed his former network and competitor ABS-CBN television for trying to destroy his career and threatened to sue colleagues who criticized him.

The Philippines' highest paid TV host has ruffled feathers in the past for his often brash language and lewd jokes.

In 2006, a stampede in a waiting line at a Manila stadium where Revillame's show was to be broadcast killed 74 people. Criminal charges of negligence against Revillame and executives at ABS-CBN, where he worked at the time, were later dropped.

[Associated Press; By TERESA CEROJANO]

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