Sleight of hand or mechanical glitch?
Insinuations that a game in the popular noontime show Wowowee was rigged spread via text messages last week. A video clip of the supposed sleight of hand was posted on YouTube, further fanning speculations. In the clip, show host Willie Revillame pulled out a box that supposedly contained the number 2, which represents the P2-million grand prize a contestant had failed to win. What appeared, however, was the number 0. Realizing that the number was the wrong one, the host promptly pulled out of the same box the number 2.Not surprisingly, the gaffe was played up by Joey de Leon, one of the hosts in the noontime show on a rival network. Revillame was compelled to issue a rebuttal, and a full-blown word war was on.
Like a typhoon drawing energy from the high seas, the controversy has since grown in size and intensity. Sen. Mar Roxas feels the issue merits a congressional inquiry. Roxas said there is a need to determine if the Consumer Protection Act has to be amended as it pertains to game shows.
De Leon himself has volunteered, along with his longtime show-biz buddies, former senator Tito Sotto and Vic Sotto, to explain the workings of a game show if an investigation is called.
Some might scoff at the idea of the Senate spending its time and resources on a hearing to find out if deception was committed during a TV game show, when other, more pressing issues cry for its attention. We think such an inquiry is in order. If there has been an attempt to deceive not only game show contestants but television viewers, it becomes a consumer concern that is worth investigating.
In the 1950s, several celebrity contestants in an American TV quiz show, Twenty One, admitted during a congressional probe they were coached by the show’s producers. As a result, the US Congress passed a law banning fixing in game shows.
More recently, scandal tainted the British version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. In September 2001 a contestant won the show’s grand prize of 1 million pounds. When the tape of the episode was reviewed by the producers, they found that the contestant was being helped along by an accomplice in the studio audience who was using coughs as cues. The prize was withheld, and Scotland Yard was summoned to investigate.
In the end, the contestant, his wife and his prompter, a college lecturer, were charged with deception and conspiracy.
ABS-CBN has attributed the Revillame’s faux pas to a “mechanical glitch.” The network, however, did not explain in detail what the problem was. It should have, if only to quell speculations that it was covering up for its high-rating show.
We would also like to hear from the Department of Trade of Industry, which monitors game shows, and the Kapisanan ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas, the organization to which ABS-CBN belongs. They should have been the first to react to the allegations of deception. In the Wowowee issue, their silence is deafening.
