Easy listening displeasure

I listen to this archaic government radio station because it plays songs like The Way You Look Tonight, Some Enchanted Evening, It Had To Be You, songs from my mother’s era. The songs from my era were Stupid Cupid, Bobby Bobby Bobby, and What a Kooky Little Paradise. I don’t long for them. Listening to the radio brings me back to the carefree days of my childhood when I would hear that radio and know that my mother and all was fine in the world. I grew up listening to radio announcers who sounded good and spoke – English, Tagalog or Spanish – well. To qualify as a radio announcer then you had to have a good voice and great diction, above the ordinary.

I was happy to find this archaic radio station. Their down side is they scold between songs. Stop smoking! Get a mammogram or you’ll die. But the music was good so I suffered their tedious messages. Then they changed programming, added more talk. One of the "talkers" is a friend. I dared say to him, "That vapid talk makes me crazy. Can’t you at least make it more interesting, set a standard for good conversation?" Obviously, they couldn’t. So I tuned out and stayed tuned out for a long time.

Maybe I should turn on the radio. It’s after nine in the morning, I’ve been procrastinating. A male voice booms making sounds I can’t decipher. I feel suddenly inadequate. What did I do? Is my hearing impaired? Why can’t I understand what he’s saying? Then slowly I realize he’s reading the news in English. He has difficulty reading and he reads in a terrible accent. He is also very serious about this.

He speaks Tagalog very well. He’s teamed up with a woman who speaks English fairly well. Why don’t they make her read English and let him speak Tagalog if this is their idea of a bi-lingual program? Someone must have told them they’re too "English", therefore too upscale. They claim to be a business station. How far do they think you would get in business if you didn’t speak English so you could be understood?

Here another shining example of how Filipinos who can be considered elite because they know better "cater to the masses." We do not serve the interests of the masses well when we cater to them. Instead of raising their standards and showing them how to improve their lot we go down to their level, convince them that’s good enough and keep them there mired in poverty. They don’t even know what skills they need to improve themselves. We make them believe that their ignorance level is acceptable. This is patronage and we should rot in hell for doing it to our fellow Filipinos. It is our biggest national crime next to corruption, a crime we mindlessly commit on a daily basis. Someone should save us from ourselves. But what am I talking about? The masses don’t listen to this station, they listen to AM radio.

Maybe this is an aberration, a technician filling in for an announcer stranded by floods. No, there he is again, same time, same station interviewing someone who sells hamburgers. Everyone says "burgers" properly. Phonetically that sounds like "bergers" with a hard g. He is saying "bargers." If he listened he would know he’s wrong because the others with him say "bergers" but he keeps saying "bargers." In a world where the medium is the message this man is saying it’s okay to stay ignorant, it’s okay to speak badly and incorrectly. Well, I have news for you: IT’S NOT OKAY AND IT’S NOT FUNNY ANY MORE.

Thirty-two years in mass communications, that’s where I’m coming from. One of the things I know is: Media legitimizes. Skin whiteners were on the market long before Block & White was introduced but they were not advertised. When Block & White came out on media, skin whiteners became a socially acceptable, legitimate product. That’s what I mean when I say media legitimizes.

When you have someone reading and speaking English badly on radio, you legitimize reading and speaking English badly. You’re saying: It’s okay, you can get on radio even if you have terrible language proficiency. So, we shouldn’t be surprised that given English proficiency tests, only three out of 10 public school teachers pass and overseas contract workers are sent home, their contracts revoked because they cannot understand instructions in English. Yes, Philippines, throw English away and you can kiss your dreams goodbye.

Okay lang, we shrug pretending we’re not inventing national language as we slide into oblivion. Okay, yan, wido, the youth now say not realizing that that word really is oído, a Spanish word meaning heard. It means to play by ear or to grope your way through. I never heard the words isyu and kapulisan, when I was growing up. Well, but language is alive. It evolves and changes, true, but it is always learned with the goal of writing and speaking well. The objectives always were: To do whatever you do proudly and well, aiming always for perfection. To know what you were doing and if not to learn it so you do it correctly and well.

What happened? Did we forget how important language is? How you speak defines you. Maybe we should just count blessings. Not many people who listen to this station can be damaged. They belong to a generation that already speaks English well (hence the offense taken). They wait for the old songs – The Way You Look Tonight, Some Enchanted Evening, It Had To Be You – and ignore whatever happens between. Here’s a business question for what claims to be a business radio station: Why are you spending so much on overhead when core listeners just like the music? Think of how profitable you could be without all those announcers. Stick to the old formula – easy listening, news in English read well, stock market reports. You might even turn a profit for the government. Then you would be a credible business station.