It’s nebulous and uncertain as the comedian’ s network prospect for a new franchise is.
The comedian’s fate even more so.
At last Monday’s hearing of the House of Representatives on bills granting ABS-CBN a new 25 year franchise, Deputy Speaker Rodante Marcoleta drove home his point with a dramatic ending of his opposition to the measures by replaying Vice Ganda’s stand-up irrverent spiel on Pastor Apollo C. Quiboloy.
It was ad hominem, alright, but it was meant to double down on its heavy emotional impact on Marcoleta’s audience, his colleagues in the House and the public at large. Marcoleta is no ordinary lawmaker; he wears two hats: apart from being an administration lawmaker, he is also a prominent member of a monolith religious group with an axe to grind against ABS-CBN.
And the recent attack on the comedian’s now infamous joke has added a new dimension on the ABS-CBN franchise issue. For one thing, Vice Ganda could now form part of the ongoing legislative conversation on the matter. Like, the comedian could be part of possible concessions on the bargaining table for granting a new franchise to the network. This is highly speculative but plausible. In the land of begging, beggars cannot choose.
Remember that the basic line of Marcoleta’s polemic was of ABS-CBN’s alleged abuses, legal, moral and otherwise. Vice Ganda’s unfortunate joke on Quiboloy was lumped in the same category when it was made the “closing argument” in Marcoleta’s opposition. If and when the network gets its new franchise, how this argument would impact the joker’s new role in ABS-CBN’s future shows would, well, show.
Beyond that, the scenario is murkier. Quiboloy has publicly expressed his preference and friendship with a big rival of ABS-CBN and a few of its prominent celebrities. The other networks may be a little squeamish about taking in a hot potato after the controversial joke on a popular and influential religious leader with close ties with President Duterte.
Vice Ganda, for all intents and purposes, has ceased to be a mere entertainment celebrity but has assumed some sort of political status that makes him fair game in the politics-cum-business-cum religion rigmarole that has shaped Philippine politics. After Marcoleta’s presentation, Vice Ganda can now begin to think of his expendability in the scheme of things way ahead around the bend,
In the meantime, Quiboloy has guardedly relished his tempered “sweet revenge” by recounting Vice Ganda’s insouciant and reckless challenge on Quiboloy’s earlier pronouncement of stopping an earthquake in the South. And, of course, the eventual comeuppance that mixed superstition with the spiritual of which many Filipinos across the board still fall for.
Quiboloy’s somewhat current elderly public admonition of the comedian reminds me of Shylock’s dialogue in Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice”. “If you prick us, do we not bleed, if you tickle us,do we not laugh, if you poison us, do we not die and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?’.
Like moneylenders who live off their clients, fairly or not, comedians make jokes for a living. It’s their business. So it also has its own risks. Someone said that comedians operate on the notion that they have a huge carte blanche and the ability to get away with a lot of things. And, as it happens, it sometimes boomerangs and haunts the source in a way never imagined beforehand, as in the case of Vice Ganda’s misadventure into the sacrosanct sphere, still an unchartered territory in public space comedics. Our local fares usually had politicans as fair games.
As a form of revenge, Shylock wanted his pound of flesh,and Portia granted it on the condition that there should be no shedding even a drop of blood which conceivably was never possible.
In Quiboloy’s case, he got his pound of flesh in way with with not a drip of Vice Ganda’s blood, but may be a bucket of tears of genuine remorse. As the comedian’s future remains uncertain, more tears may be part of the price to pay for a minute of heady fame or blithe infamy.
The world -famous Bee Gees once had a very popular song titled “I started a joke” whose every lyric characterizes the maelstrom of emotions and reactions surrounding the controversial joke that, for better or for worse, has intertwined the lives of a celebrated comedian and a hugely successful minister in a highly complicated way in a tense and trying time for everyone. It’s the perfect storm.
Vice Ganda started a joke that started the whole world laughing, But as it is now, it seems the joke is on him, with his home network in tow. Quiboloy must be quoting an oft-preached Biblical passage: pride goes before a fall.
