Has Probe Team lost its bite?

From the late 1980s up to the mid-1990s, the Probe Team was one of the most important and relevant shows on Philippine television. Its well-researched investigative features and exposes were much awaited by its legion of followers every Friday night – which was the program’s original timeslot on Channel 7 for the longest time.

As the years went by, however, this program (now aired every Tuesday) just sank deeper and deeper into mediocrity –sad to say.

I can only venture four guesses why it slowly lost its bite: 1) Its batch of hard-hitting and fearless star reporters found bigger challenges ahead and one by one left the show; 2) After all these years, it eventually ran out of interesting topics to tackle; 3) It lost its bigger stories to I-Witness which is aired one day ahead on the same channel; and 4) After all the accolades it received in the past, the people behind it became complacent and – if I may use a cliché –just sat on their laurels.

Actually, I wasn’t the only one who noticed the deterioration of the show’s quality. About a month ago, one of the regular readers of The Philippine STAR wrote Ricky Lo and also said so in his letter.

Two weeks ago – as if on cue – the Probe Team marked its 14th anniversary and to celebrate the event underwent a major facelift. The result is a more interesting and better-produced Probe Team.

The other Tuesday, Jay Orense did an investigative report on the passport fixers who shamelessly ply their illegal trade just within spitting distance of the Department of Foreign Affairs.

Orense came up with an even more daring expose last Tuesday when he presented on television some of the alleged victims of the so-called scam committed by this private company called Family First.

Family First should be familiar to mallrats who regularly frequent SM Megamall. With a well-appointed and spacious office on the fifth floor of this Ortigas Center shopping mall, Family First sends out well-dressed young men and women in a designated area to lure (victimize?) people into getting all sorts of plans: health, educational, etc.

Family First supposedly has a new "racket" now – if we are to believe Orense’s expose on the Probe Team. The new scheme entices people to invest on a Family First plan by baiting them with prizes (usually in the form of appliances) that are not necessarily given away for free.

This most recent expose of the Probe Team poses a serious damage to the reputation of Family First – and I have no idea how this company would be able to bail itself out of this mess.

To all the racketeers out there trying to put one over the consumers, therefore, you better watch out because the Probe Team staff is obviously hell-bent on exposing anomalies affecting the public. (Aside from the Probe Team, there’s also Mike Enriquez’ Imbestigador on the same channel and Erwin Tulfo’s Mission X on ABS-CBN.)

Bernadette Sembrano also did an interesting feature on The Probe Team last Tuesday. Wearing Muslim attire, she exposed some of the discriminatory acts committed against our Muslim brothers here in Manila.

According to Sembrano’s report, Muslim job-seekers are often turned away by most establishments here in the big, bad city. A young Muslim interviewed by Bernadette said that he even had to change his name to the Christian-sounding "Rolly" in order to get a job as a security guard.

Bernadette Sembrano’s Probe Team feature perhaps would have been more comprehensive has she also interviewed well-placed Muslims in Manila because I know for a fact that there are also a lot of Muslims here who are doing very well as professionals in both private and government agencies.

And maybe, she should have also asked the employees here in the big city why they seem to be reluctant to give job opportunities to our Muslim brothers. Is it just plain prejudice against the Muslims? Or is there a deeper reason than that?

Che Che Lazaro’s segment last Tuesday featured a couple who were Abu Sayyaf kidnap victims. This portion, sadly, turned out to be extremely boring. The kidnap victims here, you see, insist that the bandits treated them very well… which was well and good for them – but bad for the segment because it lacked human drama.

Now, I’m not encouraging the Probe Team and other TV shows to sensationalize their stories just to attract the interest of the viewers. But maybe something should have been done to make Che Che Lazaro’s feature a little more interesting to the people watching at home. I don’t care if Che Che was made to dance the singkil or the itik-itik (she was once a Bayanihan dancer anyway) while interviewing the ex-Abu Sayyaf kidnap victims, but I really needed something to get my attention that time. (After a few minutes of Che Che’s duller than dull conversation with the former kidnap victims, I switched to Snooky Serna’s Travel and Trade show on Channel 13 which I am reviewing next week.)

The topic of Love Anover’s segment in last Tuesday’s edition of the Probe Team was as old as the world’s oldest profession: Prostitution. (Shows on both Channels 2 and 7 seem to be obsessed with this subject matter lately)

Anover, however, tried to put a different twist to the subject of prostitution by focusing on the pimp (which was also done recently by Extra! Extra! –if I’m not mistaken). To Anover’s credit, she asked the male pimp questions I believe have never been asked before on television. She inquired from him, for instance, if he also uses for his own sexual gratification the women he sells. Sometimes, the pimp said – when he particularly likes a woman and when the need arises.

The one who has the most fun in the show is Robert Alejandro. The other Tuesday, Alejandro went on an exciting white water kayaking adventure. Then, last Tuesday, he visited an artist who does pottery (a la Demi Moore in Ghost) in Tiaong, Quezon.

Other regular viewers of Probe I’ve spoken to say that these light segments are not in keeping with the overall serious theme of the show. Actually, I think otherwise – because the world is not just all about scams, prostitution, discrimination and Abu Sayyaf kidnap victims.

Even in these hard times, we also need to have fun once in a while. And these light features on The Probe Team – I believe – are necessary to make it a more well-rounded program on television.