A sense of community develops right in front of the noontime TV viewer’s eyes, and this is brought about by the enduring Eat Bulaga on GMA. I am not about to call on you to canonize a TV program, far from it.

The noontime show itself is not spared of the affliction that is present in all noontime shows. These include but are not limited to simplistic games and the tendency to use scantily clad women forever gyrating as they hand out prizes or numbers. When will this ever stop? When will noontime TV programs cease and desist from these practices? When will TV show consultants and producers start changing their tack and stop holding up as models young women, their legs splayed, their rumps displayed as if beasts in estrus? Already, in many school programs, teeny-weeny girls are dressed as EB Babes or something. Yes, you are right, parents are to be scolded on this and also teachers who think it is okay for young teens to act as if they are ready to salivate on some subtext of carnal urges and be salivated upon. But there is also the power of the media to teach people fashion and attitude. This, however, is not the point of my essay. My point is—my points are—there are also positive things we can generate from Philippine television.

I call these lessons “unintended results,” lessons and results from the presented life experiences streaming before us.

First off are the great lessons about comedians. Ralph Waldo Emerson is not exactly the right source of wisdom about comics or clowns but somewhere in one of his long quotations, he talks about how “a rogue alive to the ludicrous is convertible.” We have a lot to thank this our universe for the rogues in the persons of Jose Manalo, Wally Bayola and, sometimes, Paolo Ballesteros. Perhaps many have discovered already the skills of these three post-modern stooges but it is good to rediscover them as they sally forth and confront through laughter and good as well as bad jokes the daily grind in our poor planet.

In a segment called “All for Juan and Juan for All,” the funny men bring Eat Bulaga or at least the brightest chunk of it into a selected village or barangay, while back in the studio Vic Sotto and Joey de Leon work their magic. I am wary of the distribution of goodies and the giving of hard cash, lots of moolah, as the group descends upon a person who is usually part of a household. True enough, there are always recipients of the gifts who are almost manipulative in communicating their needs and desires. What saves the day, however, are the banter, the charming silliness of Manalo and Bayola.

The fun begins with the call to the person whose house is to be visited that day. From that focus on Sotto usually making a call, the camera opens up the vista to a village street teeming with people and life. I do not know of any program that is able to achieve a feeling of intimacy and a rambunctious atmosphere all at the same time. The message seems to be that we have really internalized the workings of a fiesta, that community-wide celebration that serves as provider of great relief or a majestic deadener of sensitivity to, in this case, poverty and hopelessness. Whatever it is, the architects of this fun are comedians.

In the sleight of other comedians, the ensuing conversation could be a target of those whose ultimate concern is political correctness in dealing with that faceless entity called the “urban poor.” Manalo and Bayola are naturally warm fellows, and this air is easily communicated to the owner of the house that the two or three comedians are inspecting for the nation of barangays to witness. The tour is not your usual tour: Manalo goes straight into the rooms and inspects beds and unfinished breakfasts and lunches; Bayola plays this clown deathly scared of dogs. Ballesteros is the handsome visitor demure if and when some strappingly handsome lads are among the relatives of the lucky persons. These are archetypes and the three play the roles to the hilt. It is in this atmosphere that the talks often border on the insulting but Manalo, in particular, has a way of softening the shoulders of those around. Door of dilapidated refrigerators are unhinged; toilet seats are exposed to the world; the private grief and tragedies of the household are given full airing. It’s mayhem and merriment; its candor and celebration.

For students of Philippine society, the trips to these less-than-bountiful villages are lessons on socioeconomic statuses and their continuing dialog with those who find themselves on the lowest rung of this structured inequality.

Politicians can learn so much about the constituents that they ignore and are ignorant of by looking at each house visited by the team. Each household that is part of the Sugod-Bahay (literally, rush to the house) reveals significant information about who are in the big cities, and these are individuals coming from outside the Great (because of size) Metropolitan Manila. Everyone earns so little with the tasks that they have for employment. Children in the household are either out of school temporarily so that a brother or sister can continue with his or her studies first. Or, no one has ever attended school. In these families, the mother either stays at home because there is no job or because there is no one to take care of the children. In other homes, we find what gender/women-sensitive studies have revealed: mothers are mother and worker at the same time. Everyone seems to have a province, a kind of distant rootedness. Lately, Manalo has taken it upon himself—in an atrociously funny way of course—to ask always the person receiving the money and the goodies if he ever has plans to transfer. Sotto and de Leon notice this and mockingly scold always Manalo for asking people to transfer.

There is hope in these situations, too. In some special celebration of Eat Bulaga, the team revisits some families who had been recipients of the financial assistance, very much like what developmental organizations do. The revisit is an informal assessment and although the sample is small, the lessons are always reassuring: the so-called poor can be harnessed for better societal results. The once dilapidated homes now look clean and strong. The doleouts were used wisely and appropriately to set up a small eatery. The elder brother finishes college surmounting all difficulties.

Now, if  only they could alter a bit the gyrations of their EB Babes, just a bit, so our little girls could have a little change in aesthetics and all our children are sexualized in a less hazardous and abrupt way.

In the meantime, as Emerson puts it, our sense of being alive to the ludicrous—the wildly funny and absurd­—can make us open to many good changes around us.