Amalayer!

(my journal entry dated November 16, 2012, a Friday)

The latest buzzword—if that’s how you call it—is “amalayer,” which I believe is a Filipinized contraction of “I’m a liar.” Not that I agree with the spelling because it’s too Tagalized. Besides, “layer” reminds me of an egg-laying chicken. But since that’s what most people understand now, I guess I’d just go with the flow.

It’s from a viral video on the net showing a female student giving an MRT lady guard the dressing down kasi ipinahiya daw siya ni lady guard kaya, ayun, nagwawala siya complete with all the theatrics she could muster.

The first time I saw it, I thought it was funny. Kasi, Inggles nang Inggles si Ate, and I thought she was doing a parody of Anne Curtis in a TV drama. The first time she said the “amalayer” outburst, I thought she said “I’m liar?” without the determiner “a.” Subsequently, she corrected herself and said, “I’m a liar!” with the “a” this time, but “liar” still pronounced as “lī-yerr,” which kinda got me a bit disturbed (in the ears). But then, that’s just semantics, and I’m not dwelling on that.

The reason why I focus on this “issue” now over the more important things out there (as far as I’m concerned) is that it’s a fine example of how the local showbiz industry is giving its public role models that are “poor”—to say the least about it. Not that Anne Curtis is "poor," but the stuff of materials that they show on local TV and the movies (in which Anne Curtis belongs) are just not uplifting either. The kaartehan does not help; the kilig factor does not help; the trying-hard-to-be-Hollywood glamour does not help.

If you wish to escape reality through local mainstream entertainment, it just doesn’t work—at least not for me. You have overexposed actors playing cliché characters in predictable storylines concocted following jaded formulas, what do you expect? It’s all fake—it sucks at make-believe. And you wonder why reality shows are “in” these days.

Unfortunately, the “fakeness” is what has streamed down the masses’ consciousness. You have stupid politicians and stupid showbiz personalities building up stupid mountains out of the littlest mounds, and the masses think that’s the way to go: be drama queens, show it on Youtube, then celebrate the mediocrity.

And in the end, it is the mass of voters who get all the flak for being duped into electing sooo self-serving politicians into office. That is not fair.

The masses need to be taught the way. And since Filipinos are generally EQ-oriented (as Sec. Robredo said), to do so would need GOOD ROLE MODELS. Role models that inspire them by deed and example, not propaganda, press releases or vulgar displays of power and attitude.

Sadly, the latter is the case with Ms. Amalayer. The lady guard said in the news that Ms. Amalayer was telling her to GET DOWN ON HER KNEES AND BEG FOR HER FORGIVENESS IN PUBLIC. Whoa! Marimar, ikaw ba ‘yan? Lol. It’s a familiar scene only in telenobelas and the movies, as far as I know.

Yet underneath this absurd comedy is the tragedy that stupid television is now dictating—or worse, even taking over—reality. For all I know, Anne Curtis would not do that in real life and in public; only in stupidly conceived TV dramas, she would.

But the stupidly misled fans probably would. The stupidly misled public would. All just because the EQ-oriented populace saw their idols doing it on TV.

Now, I’m not saying that what Ms. Amalayer did was all wrong. For all I know, maybe it really was righteous anger on her part. What went wrong, however, were her manners and motives. It gave me the impression that the why and how she did it were no different from the whys and hows politicians and celebrities do the dumbest things just to hog the spotlight to themselves.

I guess that’s the difference between Mr. Carabuena and Ms. Amalayer. The former was being true to his emotions, the latter was being true to her impressions. Unluckily, they both got caught on camera in a one-sided light. And the public who saw their videos badly needed the break from the humdrums of the dumb and common.