PEP Editor-in-Chief Jo-Ann Maglipon's speech at MMPRESS kickoff

Read: IN PHOTOS: MMPRESS Kick off and Appreciation Night

JO-ANN Q. MAGLIPON'S ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

Good evening. This is much appreciated, thank you.

I don't think I've been recognized at any time, for anything, by any group, in showbiz until MMPress. So, thank you to all who make up the Multimedia Press Society, such as showbiz veterans Jun Nardo and Rose Garcia and Nitz Miralles and Noy Calderon, and the young ones I have yet to meet.

Your statement says your group is "revitalized." Any group that invites Arniel Serato—chief of correspondents at PEP, our breaking-news guy, and our resident jester—must be pretty revitalized. Thank you for adopting him.

Your statement also says you are "inclusive." Any group that puts me in the same category as honoree with Nay Lolit—when our views about, say, Bea Alonzo are known to clash—must be really inclusive.

But, let me put it out there: Lolit Solis is someone I tend to disagree with, often; but she is someone I can love, always. I think watching over us is Douglas Quijano, everyone's Tito Dougs, who will always be, to me, first among equals in the very select group of independent talent managers, in an age when independents are becoming a rarity.

I've been around showbiz about 30 years put together. I just counted.

I was two years with Celebrity magazine of Mr. Rod Reyes. One year with the Gokongwei-owned Sunday Times Magazine, where at one time a section called "Showbiz Prattle" was written by Tito Dougs, no less. Several years free-lancing with entertainment articles and columns for Philippine Daily Inquirer, Panorama magazine, and elsewhere.

And then, 18 lively years with YES! magazine, where I worked with Anna Pingol, the best showbiz editor anyone can have for back-up and partner. Today, I count I don't know how many years with the Philippine Entertainment Portal, PEP, where holding the fort steady is veteran editor Erwin Santiago.

So, this award feels like I've earned it.

Tonight gives me that one more connection to showbiz—thank you, MMPress—an industry I have long embraced, even as I do not give up socio-political writing.

I am a great defender of showbiz.

Jose F. Lacaba, Executive Editor at YES! magazine, used to say: "We take our entertainment seriously." It sounded funny even to us, but it is true.

See, there are always doubters and snobs.

When in a big gathering with other journalists covering beats like Malacañang, Defense, and Foreign News, there is always that small, embarrassed pause before someone asks, "O, ano na ang kuwento kay Heart at Chiz?"

I sense a whole subtext there. A subtext that says: "Let's take a rest from all this heavy, important stuff about governance. Tell us about Jinggoy, bakit parang victim-blaming? Bakit si Robin, may sinasabing 'in heat'?"

I am not comfortable with it. It makes showbiz feel like an INTERMISSION. Like a FRIVOLITY. So that they can act like they're not really interested and just need the comic relief—but, I tell you, they're interested in every word. (These closet Mariteses.)

Well, my own small circle of journalist friends is probably more genial in intent. But what they all need to get is that, like CCP Lifetime Awardee Pete Lacaba, I TAKE SHOWBIZ SERIOUSLY.

I do not think of showbiz as a side bar or an addendum.

I want showbiz at centerstage.

I want it respected.

Entertainment is every bit as relevant a beat as Malacañang and the AFP, just minus the killing.

And every bit as relevant as Foreign News where madmen run countries, sometimes; just like here, sometimes.

What CULTURE the entertainment industry can create matters. Its songs, films, plays, dances, scripts—these matter. So, I mind that CENSORSHIP keeps getting in the way.

I mind that limited and narrow minds are often given control over wild and fun creatives.

Artists push boundaries, nobody's heard?

Society evolves because its artists dare to nudge borders and conventions.

They take risks for the rest of us.

Therefore, artists need support—not have one obstacle after another thrown at them by unaccomplished people with cramped ideas.

Artists need air—not more rules that suck the enthusiasm out of them.

Artists need funding—not sanctions and fines for every woke transgression.

For artists to survive, censors must actually leave uptight, personal beliefs at home.

And, please, do not invoke religion. I studied only in Catholic schools all my life, and I know not to use Somebody's name in vain.

Like I said, I TAKE SHOWBIZ SERIOUSLY. So seriously that PEP, where I am founding editor, earnestly applies the rules of journalism to the beat.

What applies to the beats of the Lower House and the Upper House applies just as well to showbiz: Getting the many sides to a story. Fact-checking. Getting quotes right. Finding more sources, even if everyone wants to be anonymous.

Not doing as instant reporters from social media do; we do not rely only on postings and comments. It is no longer the pandemic. We have to get out of the virtual world and step out into the real one, where flesh-and-blood people are.

Which is why, to Managers and Handlers, Producers and Network Executives, may I say—Please stop guarding your stars as though they had no minds of their own.

Do not keep controlling presscons with your curated questions.

Do not drop reporters from your list because they ask the questions people want answers to.

You are making showbiz bland.

Everyone's beginning to look and sound alike.

Try also not to go into a pictorial with your long list of DON'T ASKS: Don't ask about the parents, don't ask about the husband, don't ask about the co-star.

At the same time, try and cut down on your list of ASKS: Evian, Ambi-Pure, special food from some specialty resto, a chaise lounge, a dedicated anteroom. Stop picking up from the Hollywood playbook!

You're selling your star, so take away the plastic wrap.

Bottomline: They have brains; they are not clueless. They come with their own history; there is no need to invent one for them.

They have the potential to be interesting. Let them speak. Don't fence them in.

Let them, if it comes to that, make their own mistakes.

That said, we Reporters and Editors must, in turn, not pounce.

We want stars to speak openly, we should stop being mean.

Even more basic, we do not browbeat one star to make another shine.

We do not take a newbie actor's comment out of context just so we can have clickbait for our next column.

Especially when they do not have the protection of a showbiz clan behind them, cut them some slack.

But, my ultimate wish for us who write about showbiz is this: That we find our courage.

If not our courage, then at least our irreverence.

If not our irreverence, then just the urge to TELL IT AS IT IS.

Let us not write nice things because we want GMA7 to keep inviting us. Let us not write bad things because we want Star Magic to pay us attention. Let us not write all the time about the same showbiz family because this one feeds us and takes us on trips. Let us not write because we like the power and the perk.

Let us write because writing is the only thing we want to do—and because writing is the one thing we want to do well.

Thank you to MMPress. Long live showbiz!

Read: Dingdong, Jo-Ann, Boy among honorees at MMPRESS Night