So what if you're a provinciano?

The Bubble Gang tandem of the bratty Angelina (Ogie Alcasid) and the loser Yaya (Michael V.) has become so successful that GMA 7 is giving them their own game show (to replace Janno Gibbs’ Kakasa Ka Ba sa Grade 5?, which will end soon). Not only that. They will also have their own movie — a trilogy that will have a comedy, romance and drama.

Now, who says that the Yaya is a loser? With those projects, she and her bratty ward are the season’s biggest winners.

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I thought this image of the so-called provinciano carrying a tampipi (native suitcase) and speaking with a rural accent already went away — what with the previous generation’s effort to launch repeated media campaigns against stereotyping.

To my disgust, it made a comeback over the weekend when I watched a sexy gag show and there it was — the provinciano being pictured once more as somebody inferior to city folk.

It was all contained in a sketch that compared the ways of a city-based Am-boy to that of a provinciano. And so we see the Am-boy having fun with his play station, while the provinciano has to make do playing with spiders. When invited to dinner, the Am-boy is thoughtful enough to contribute something to the menu — fancy salad greens. But the provinciano is so barbaric, he brings a live chicken with him. And when courting a girl, the Am-boy offers a bouquet of flowers to his inamorata. The bumpkin provinciano does the same, but with matching vegetables.

This sketch isn’t even funny, sorry to say. It is predictable — and this is to be expected because we’ve seen this kind of tasteless humor even in the ‘50s local movies.

I’ve always been a city lad all my life, but I felt very offended when I saw that show picturing the provinciano as inferior and backward. How could the people behind that program be so irresponsible?

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In contrast, I saw Family Feud host Richard Gomez play responsible media practitioner in his show last week. In that episode, one of the questions thrown to the contestants was this: What would you do if you were invisible? The studio participants, of course, had to guess the popular answers that were based on a survey conducted by the research team of GMA 7.

To everyone’s horror, however, the popular answers turned out to be the following: Magnanakaw, mamboboso and sasaktan ang kaaway. The results could not be altered, of course, because the research team would not allow the show to tamper with it.

To Richard’s credit, he took time to pause, talked to the viewers and made it very clear that though those were the survey results, those deeds are very bad indeed and should not be followed.

And fortunately, just when we were about to lose faith in humanity, there was another answer that saved the day for mankind: Some of the people asked in the survey said that “they would help others secretly.” The world isn’t so bad, after all.      

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Fanny Serrano (photo), who is now the president of the Philippine International Cosmetologists Association (PICO), is pleased to announce that the organization will hold a three-day event dubbed as Cosmetologie ‘09 from Feb. 26 to 28.

The affair, to be held at the SM Mall of Asia, will start daily at 10 a.m. and will feature hair shows, health and beauty expos, new make-up techniques, a fashion fair and models doing runways.

One of the highlights of the three-day event produced by the Premier Events Plus Group will be the awarding of the winner of the makeup competition held last Jan. 26 at The Arena in San Juan.

Among the presenters in the awarding ceremonies are Lorna Tolentino and Judy Ann Santos.

The finale of Cosmetologie ‘09 is a mini-fashion show to be graced by Cherie Gil.