Payong Kapatid from your Ate Cheryl

You know the saying about how good we are at solving other people’s problems, except ours?

I don’t know about you, but I have this quirky habit of reading advice columns (like the one being run by the Cojuangco sisters and their Mom Tingting in this paper every Friday), forming my own opinion in my head and trying to compare it to the advice dished out by the counselors.

On Philippine television, we had a lot of drama/counseling programs – the most famous of which was Lovingly Yours, Helen, hosted by the late Helen Vela (Eddie Ilarde’s equally popular Kahapon Lamang did not include counseling – it only dramatized the lives and experiences of letter-writers).

Some shows, however, only had strictly counseling and did away with the drama part. In the late ’60s, there was Bob Garon (still a priest then), who ran a Friday night counseling show on GMA 7. (In one episode, he actually stopped a wheelchair-bound teenager from taking her own life.)

Then in the early ‘90s, Dr. Agnes Bueno and Joe D’ Mango became the insomniacs’ delight when they hosted a midnight counseling show for RPN-9. (I loved this tandem because they were very practical with the pieces of advice they were dishing out.)

Today, we have Cheryl Cosim doing Payong Kapatid late Wednesday nights (actually very early Thursday) on ABS-CBN.

Payong Kapatid, however, has a theme for the night. If the topic is sex, then it’s just sex. If it’s health, it’s just health and nothing else.

The strongest point of this advice show is that it gets very good resource persons – very no-nonsense professionals who really know the ins and outs of their specialization. Two Wednesdays ago (okay, early Thursday), even those who do not have any business acumen or interest in running a business must have learned a lot from young entrepreneur Joey Concepcion when Payong Kapatid did an episode on business.

The other Wednesday (yeah — early Thursday), the topic was legal matters and this episode must have enlightened those who are purchasing properties or leasing them out to tenants.

This week was about homosexuality and the show became quite colorful because the resource person was the very articulate Dr. Margie Holmes, who can just go on and on talking about sex and sexuality – and from the end of the viewer, you can just go on and on listening to her because this advice guru really makes sense.

The show also has a gem in Cheryl Cosim. She’s an effective host for this type of program because it’s either she researches on the topic for the night or she’s really very knowledgeable about a lot of things – or both. Her intelligence shows in her follow-up questions addressed either to the advice-seeker or the resource person.

And when the topic is about sex, you know that she is so ladylike and decent because she can say what is usually unmentionable on the air in very clinical terms – without naughty giggling and absolutely without malice. She’s really an asset. Plus she’s pretty and pleasant on camera – probably the only one who still manages to look her best at that ungodly hour.

Of course, the show can use a little more jazzing up in its weekly presentation. No, I’m not even advising the show to go the way of Helen Vela and dramatize because this is going to be very expensive for a late-night program.

If you ask me, I’m really fine with the show’s format at the moment: You put the advice-seeker on the phone and the resource person is there to give his or her opinion and everyone goes to bed peacefully after that – knowing that there is a solution to every problem.

But it’s the audience I’m worried about because the viewing public can be very demanding these days. People have such short attention span and you have to keep them interested all the time. The show is doing okay so far, but knowing the audience’s pulse, I feel like something has to be done – soon.

I know that the show has already developed a loyal following – if you base it on the number of callers and people who text. But I hope it continues to bring in more viewers because the show – in its own little way – helps callers with their problems.

I’m therefore calling on all fellow insomniacs to unite and support this program, which in turn takes care of our brothers and sisters who can’t afford professional help.

And to the show’s production staff, payong kapatid lang: It won’t hurt to add a little more zest to the program.