'Excuse me po! Hindi ko kayo tatantanan!!!'

For the past 10 years (and, I believe, many more years to come), Mike Enriquez has been warning criminal elements to beware, otherwise, “Hindi ko kayo tatantanan!”

That’s your TV Imbestigador speaking, his right forefinger pointed at whoever is running afoul of the law.

Hosting “the most credible investigative program in the country,” which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this month, can be life-threatening but Mike simply shrugs off the death threats that, he said, come with the territory. Cases have been filed against the show but all of them were dismissed for lack of merit.

“Our show doesn’t have police power, so we don’t arrest criminals,” Mike clarifies. “We simply help expose crimes. That’s why when my team and I swoop down on criminal elements, we always have the police with us.”

So far, Imbestigador (Saturday nights on GMA) has aired almost 600 episodes so Mike is at a loss to name the three most dangerously memorable.

“One of them was when we raided a drug den in Manila. One hundred operatives of the NBI were with us. Actually, every undertaking is dangerous,” says Mike who, together with his 60-strong staff, take the necessary precaution every time they embark on a mission, they wear bullet-proof vests but don’t carry guns. Their cop-escorts will do the firing — if necessary.

At the moment, Imbestigador is investigating what Mike describes as a “highly-explosive” expose on a drug syndicate “involving big names.” He won’t comment beyond that. “Kapag natuloy ito, malaking estorya.”

To what does Mike attribute the show’s popularity and longevity?

“Well, we never run out of people who are being abused and who seek out the media for help. They are confident that if they go to Imbestigador, they will get help without any obligation. We don’t ask or expect anything in return. Maski pang-merienda hindi kami tumatanggap. As long as people are inaapi, niloloko, ginagantso, sinasaktan at wina-walanghiya…or there are people using their wealth and power to oppress other people, Imbestigador will be there.”

Besides Imbestigador, Mike co-anchors the GMA early-evening newscast 24 Oras and a five-hour morning program on dzBB (joined by Arnold “Igan” Clavio, straight from Unang Hirit) Monday through Friday. How does a multi-tasker diabetic cope with the demands of the job?

“You need to be physically fit in this kind of job, especially when you’re working with younger people. Kapag nagtakbuhan na, dapat nakahanda ka. After 24 Oras, I work out. Aside from Redjuice (which cleanses one’s colon), I take vitamins. I have some medications to control my blood sugar.”

And how does he deal with death threats?

“You know, early on the job, a general told me, ‘Don’t be bothered by death threats; hindi ka aanuhin ng mga ‘yan. Matakot ka doon sa hindi nagtri-threat, ‘yung mga hindi kumikibo.”

No physical assault against him so far, knock on wood.

 “But one time,” Mike reveals, “there was a threat serious enough for the police to be concerned. They told me, ‘Call your wife; tell her to prepare clothes for both of you for five days. Hindi kayo uuwi. We have prepared a room for you at a hotel. A van is now on its way to your house to fetch your wife’.” No worry about kids. Mike and his wife have none.

His wife (who should be unnamed for security reasons) is aware of Mike’s derring-do, even if she once said, “Hayyy, ano ba naming klaseng buhay ‘to!”

Well, that’s life.

Still and all, Mike doesn’t get tired saying, without sounding like a broken record, “Hindi ko kayo tatantanan!”

(Note: For its 10th-anniverssary, Imbestigador is presenting the following episodes: Cyberkids, a special report on children forced into Cybersex operations, on Sept. 18; Smuggled Pinoys, a special report on human trafficking, on Sept. 25; and A Decade of Imbestigador, featuring highlights of the show in the past decade, on Oct. 2.)

Kuya Kim back on air in 10 days

Over lunch yesterday at Annabel’s restaurant with his friend-movie-writers, former Manila Mayor and DENR Secretary Lito Atienza announced that his son , Kim “Kuya Kim” Atienza, will be back on TV after suffering a mild stroke a few weeks ago.

“According to his doctors,” relates Lito, “it was really a miracle that Kim survived. There was a blood clot that could have ruptured. Had there been a delay in bringing him to the hospital, first at PGH before he was transferred to the Makati Med, he would have died.”

As Lito recounts, Kim has just come out of the shower that morning when he felt a tightening pain on his nape that rendered him speechless.

“He rushed out of the bathroom naked. The maid was shocked and embarrassed when she saw Kim. Sabi n’ya, ‘Ano ba naman ‘yan, Sir?’ But Kim quickly put on his pants and asked the driver to rush him to the nearest hospital. His family lives in Malate, a few blocks away from PGH.”

Being a health buff, Kim as well as his family and friends were surprised why he would suffer from a stroke. He exercises regularly and he eats healthy. The culprit: STRESS. Kim used to co-host the early-morning ABS-CBN show Umagang Kay Ganda, the noontime show Showtime and the weather-segment of the early-eveing newscast TV Patrol World.

“It’s a killer schedule, “ agrees Lito.

A check-up showed that, without his knowing it, Kim was suffering from hypothyroidism which could have possibly helped cause the stroke.

“He should cut down on his workload,” adds Lito.

The experience has radically changed Kim’s outlook in life.

“Life is precious,” Lito quotes Kim as saying. “We shouldn’t take our health for granted.

Lito says that Kim has become an advocate of the pro-life movement.

Moral of the story?

Don’t kill yourself on the job. Don’t let your job kill you.

Untold Face to Face Stories starts tonight on TV5

Good news for followers of the TV5’s Face to Face, touted as “ang kauna-unahan at nag-iisang talakserye ng telebisyon,” hosted by Amy “Tiyang Amy” Perez: Starting tonight, its spin-off show titled Untold Stories will air from 8 to 9 also on TV5.

Its premier episode, Paano Hahatiin ang Gabi?, stars Dina Bonnevie as Aling Nelly, a reserved wife to her womanizer husband Mang Denio (played by Jay Manalo) who openly keeps his mistress (Glydel Mercado) in an apartment unit near the one they’re renting.

The story, like the succeeding ones, is based on accounts of guests on Face To Face in which Tiyang Amy acts as “referee.”

“It’s true that real life is stranger than fiction,” says Amy.

Argel Joseph directs the drama anthology with Elmer Gatchalian as head writer. The Untold Stories theme song Tadhana is performed by Wency Cornejo whose mom, Mel Tiangco, used to host a similarly-formatted show on GMA.

Everybody is invited to tune in.

Sec. Jojo couldn’t be ‘guilty’

In spite of the seeming fixation of some quarters to spread an unsavory story of a supposedly “very drunk” Executive Secretary Jojo Ochoa at the lobby of a swanky hotel in the company of a popular singer-actress and her friends, it now appears that the fuss was really all but a fib.

That’s according to Sec. Jojo’s friend who requested anonymity.

She wrote the following disclaimer for Funfare:

First things first. The Little President could not have been as “oblivious” as some rumor mongers claimed he was at that alleged time since he was not drunk at all. Ochoa could not have “slumped in a chair at the lobby, having he grand time of his life because he had his hands full with official meetings related to the then on-going hostage crisis.

As for the popular singer-actress and her two lady friends, it was learned that Ochoa merely bumped into her, it was never as if the ES and thie girls had purposely went out to engage in a “date”, or a drinking binge at that, as a recent article seemed to portray.

The former “Little Mayor” of Quezon City is said to be a quiet and low-profile civil servant. He is also described to have a different but effective management style. He does his job but is not the type who would immediately grab the limelight and flaunt it.

So, is there some kind of “movement” to discredit the Executive Secretary. If indeed, why so? Is it because the chosen Little President would rather go for yellow, instead of, well, another color?

The coffin switcheroos

The news story about the coffin switcheroo involving three of the Chinese victims killed in the Quirino Grandstand hostage tragedy is certainly not funny to the families of the bereaved. Thankfully, the people of Hong Kong seem to have accepted the funeral parlor’s faux pas as an honest mistake and have not cited it as yet another shining example of the Filipinos’ insensitivity to their collective grief and outrage.

“Honestly,” said Eric Ramos, scriptwriter of Two Funerals, directed by Gil M. Portes, which is now showing in Metro theaters, “I found the news amusing because I immediately saw it as a case of life imitating art. You see, the idea of a funeral parlor mixing up the names of victims in a tragic incident is the very premise of Two Funerals. In the movie’s case, two coffins are mistakenly sent to the wrong families because of the similarity of the surnames Buensuceso and Buenviaje.

“Unfortunately, the switcheroo involves two locations on opposite ends of Luzon: Tuguegarao, Cagayan and Matnog, Sorsogon. This is the set-up for a road movie where the outraged mother and fiancé of one of the victims travel hundreds of kilometers from north to south, trailed by a hearse transporting the wrong coffin to be traded on the other end. The catch is that no mourning is happening in the funeral in Bicol, only an orgy of gambling, singing and dancing.”

Two Funerals is obviously a black comedy that juxtaposes grief and hilarity of the lowbrow kind. The combo worked like magic at the Cinemalaya Film Festival, where Two Funerals won five major awards, including Best Director for Gil and Best Screenplay for Eric. It also charmed the Cinema Evaluation Board, which gave it a unanimous “A” rating.

“However,” added Eric, “I realize now that some people may see the movie as a showcase of our culture’s alleged lack of gravitas, of our people’s notorious inability to keep a straight face and take a picture when we should be grieving and howling in rageóor burying our heads in shame. I shall leave that subject for social scientists and op-ed columnists to dissect.”

It would interest the public still reeling from Rolando Mendoza’s murderous rampage that coffin-switcheroos have happened in this country before.

“The story concept for Two Funerals came to Gil after he had read a tabloid account of one such real-life case of a delivery of the wrong casket to a family in Bulacan.

“Of course, the cause of the multiple deaths implied in the movie --- the collision of two passenger buses --- is a common occurrence in this nation, where every so often rampaging buses fall off ravines and sometimes kill beauty queens. They normally don’t stop for dismissed police officers with a death wish and an M-16.” 

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