THERE ARE TWO THINGS THAT CAN TRULY spoil the telecast of a great sports event: very many commercials and very silly commentary. My friends and I endured these again in the recent satellite showing of the Viloria-Aguirre title fight and the NBA All-Star Game. The advertising assault, we can live with (thank heavens for the TV remote control!); the flimsy Filipino commentary, we can’t.
Everyone knows that the vastly superior American commentary was available, but Solar Sports chose to go “Pinoy” as it did in the Pacquiao-Morales rematch. I’m not normally pro-American, but in cases like these, when the events are held in their turf, ’em Yanks are arguably the best. And sports fans, wherever they are in the world, deserve nothing less.
Of course, Solar Sports will say it did so to afford us locals a “distinctive Filipino flavor and perspective.” Fine, but as in the Viloria-Aguirre setto, any Pinoy commentary tends to be more bland and biased than brilliant and balanced. (And who can ever forget that mystifying line uttered by the blow-by-blow announcer: “Ang mga tama ni Aguirre ay hindi na luma-landing!”) (The blows of Aguirre are going nowhere!)
The original telecast NBA All-Star Game would have been an aural pleasure with Marv Albert and Doug Collins calling the shots. Alas, the Pinoy anchor there in Houston was almost always a pass late in describing the action, while his companion kept bombarding us with distracting statistics ad nauseum in his squeaky voice. And quite obviously, they didn’t get cues from the American TV director so they (and us poor viewers) got lost when the coverage suddenly shifted to an off-court interview or a taped video.
But, hey, the Taglish commentary must count for major points, right?
Come on, in broadcasting, it’s what you say—and not how you say it—that really matters. The problem with sports television in this country is that anyone with enough name-dropping talent and facial thickness can be a “sportscaster,” even if he or she is without any skill or savvy. There are those who are better read than heard, there are those who can only talk well with their fists, and there are those who ought to be covering only the Palarong Pambansa.
We hope that in the next satellite feed of a great sports event on American soil, Solar Sports (or whichever the local outfit may be) would at the very least give local viewers a choice of commentary: “Filipinized” on free TV and American on cable. That way, we don’t have to use the remote control’s mute function, as we often did in those two sports events.
—GINO O. GUERRERO, via e-mail
