#EatBulaga!UnderFire
EXCLUSIVE
PART 2
Eat Bulaga! is still the one to beat.
Forty-four years old this year, Eat Bulaga! is way ahead of the pack of the longest-running shows on Philippine television. Coming closest at 38 years is the Pepe-Pimentel-hosted Family Kuarta o Kahon, except that the game show went off the air in 2000. Still in the race is ASAP, Eat Bulaga's rival in games-and-variety-show programmming, which logs in at 28 years and counting. TV Patrol is, of course, at 36 years even farther ahead, especially impressive for a news program. At its heels is Saksi at 27 years, while the rest of the notables in news-and-public-affairs programming come in at under year 20. (Wikipedia figures, April 2023)
All tallied, no other program in any category hereabouts—musical, drama, or comedy; advice, showbiz, or fashion; fantasy, action, or religious; cooking, gardening, or explainer; nature, travel, or talk show—has ever hit the 40-year mark. Only Eat Bulaga! has done it. Forty-four is some number. In July this year, this inches EB! six years closer to 50, The Golden Year.
But, will it make it?
Eat Bulaga! is living in uneasy times. And, whereas past slings and arrows have come from the outside—allowing the Eat Bulaga! team, aka the Dabarkads, led by Tito Sotto, Vic Sotto, and Joey de Leon, aka the TVJ, to regroup in the safety of camp—this time is different. This time, the unease lies right within the camp, where lines have been drawn between the Jalosjos Family and TVJ.
The Jalosjos Family owns Television and Production Exponents, Inc., or TAPE. Records at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) show that ownership of TAPE is spread so: Romeo Jalosjos, 51 percent; 3 of his children, 8 percent each; and Antonio Tuviera, 25 percent. In the last 42 years, Tuviera was TAPE President and CEO, till March 2023, when he was retired and Romeo Jalosjos Jr. took over his positions.
TAPE has been the producer of Eat Bulaga! since 1981.
The TVJ have been the anchor hosts of Eat Bulaga! since 1979. They are the face and name of the show, the head of the pin on which the show stands or falls. They are salaried employees: Vic and Joey are paid monthly; Tito is paid per appearance. There is no contract between TVJ and TAPE. Over 42 years, their working relationship has been founded, says Tito Sotto, on their trust in and closeness with Tuviera, who is simply Tony or Mr. T to them.
This year came with unexpected and, apparently, unwelcome changes.
This is when Romy Jalosjos began showing who is boss. As TAPE majority owner, he announced changes in administration: Mr. T is out; everyone has been asked to resign and get rehired under a lower pay scheme, although that instruction is now on hold. Next he dropped ideas for production: he wants new blood and names the hosts he wants taken out; he plans to bring in a child from Zamboanga del Norte, the Jalosjos base, to turn into the next child star; he wants the show's director and its chief writer removed from there.
The TVJ, also the glue that keeps the show together, were upset, but kept their silence. They proposed a compromise: Everyone will take a 10 percent cut in pay until December this year, after which the company can assess its financial standing, and they talk again. TAPE agreed.
Everyone returned to an uneasy peace. It was a peace broken, say the TVJ, when Bullet Jalosjos—Romy's younger son, TAPE's Chief Finance Officer, and also mayor of Dapitan City, Zamboanga del Norte—took to the media. His statements, coupled with others leaking from the Jalosjos camp, have sent the TVJ ballistic.
Read: TAPE's Mayor Bullet Jalosjos assures public Tito, Vic & Joey will not leave 'Eat Bulaga!'
Tito Sotto, going to the frontlines for TVJ, has stepped out and called the CFO's statements "lies."
Tito accommodates PEP.ph (Philippine Entertainment Portal) with a taped video interview on the evening of April 25, 2023, at the Quezon City Sports Club. Our team is made up of myself, the PEP editor-in-chief; Erwin Santiago, the news editor on top of the unfolding Eat Bulaga! story; video editor Rommel Llanes; and columnist Gorgy Rula who had been tracking the Dabarkads. We'd been knocking on Eat Bulaga!'s doors since the first day of March, the day PEP picked up chatter about a "well-loved" boss being sacked. It was, in fact, EB! big boss Tony Tuviera, the owner of 25 percent of TAPE. Well-loved as Tony was, he had to move over. The majority owners, Romy Jalosjos and Sons, were taking over.
Read: Long-running show, magkakaroon ng malaking pagbabago sa pag-alis ng isang well-loved personality
Part 1 of this two-part article—titled "Tito Sotto drops bombs on those warring with Eat Bulaga!," published in PEP.ph April 29, 2023—carried what the TVJ believe to be LIES #1, #2, and #3.
Part 2 carries more of what Tito flatly calls "lies." These come in as Lies #4 and #5.
Read: EXCLUSIVE Part 1: Tito Sotto drops bombs on those warring with 'Eat Bulaga!'
LIE #4: TAPE OWNS EAT BULAGA!
Tito Sotto is not happy with anyone claiming Eat Bulaga! is theirs—not even if they own an overwhelming 75 percent of TAPE, the company that produces the show as blocktimer for GMA-7.
But Tito is not a man to make unnecessary noise. At 75 years old, he has straddled the worlds of politics and entertainment—a senator of the republic for 24 years, or four full terms, with a stint as Cabinet Secretary, which complies with a senator's three-continuous-terms limit; and an entertainer for at least 58 years, beginning in the mid-'60s, when he was singer and guitarist for the dapper five-man band, the Tilt-Down Men. He knows no one wants an enemy, and everyone can do with a friend.
Still, he's been called to put out fires for EB! in the past. The first recourse, in his words, is always to "insulate the program from any controveries." But compelled to put himself out, he has the set of skills for the job. As politician, he can talk, spin a story; as entertainer, he can break tension with a quip, have contending parties look less angry.
It looks like his set of skills is needed again. The very name, Eat Bulaga!, is at stake here—who owns it? who can use it? who are the claimants? For this, an unsmiling Tito digs into the history of the noontime show; his ammunition is EB!'s history.
In biblespeak, he can be translated as saying: Render unto TAPE what is TAPE's and unto Eat Bulaga! what is Eat Bulaga!s. By his reckoning:
TAPE is the producer—it pays the salaries of staff, crew, and stars; it funds the show's backdrops, venues, costumes, and props; it handles the logistics of transportation, communication, and equipment; it invests money, it makes money. This is management at work, it's backroom deals and negotiations, it's work often quantifiable.
EAT BULAGA! is the production—the artistic minds, the ideas people, the talents who write spiels and skits; they who brainstorm the segments and commission research and analysis; they who execute ideas, direct, and design; they who host, sing, dance, and face an audience that must be entertained. These are the creatives at work, it's front and center with the audience, it's work not often quantifiable.
Tito wants it known that there is a clear divide.
Plunging into the history of Eat Bulaga!, Tito goes back all the way to 1979, right into the kitchen of his old house on Derby Street. The three of them, who were not yet in the national psyche as TVJ, were hanging around. They were already TV stars, having begun the hot Iskul Bukol the year before. But they were carving their niche on rich ground: the Apo Hiking Society was always competition, and Eddie Ilarde, Bobby Ledesma, Pepe Pimentel, Helen Vela, and Coney Reyes were in the terribly popular Student Canteen. Tito was 30, Vic, 24, and Joey, 32—and they were working on getting a daily show. It would be the gig to seal huge exposure on daytime television.
That's exactly where they were in their lives when Joey came up with a name. Tito says Joey made the motion of eating, EAT, and the act of springing a surprise, BULAGA! Thus was born EAT BULAGA! Tito and Vic liked it. Joey's invention looked like a winner. They went to Tony Tuviera with the good news: They had the title for a show!
By July 30, 1979, Eat Bulaga! began airing in Channel 9, with Production Specialist Inc. as producer. Production Specialist, owned by Romeo Jalosjos, Antonio Tuviera, and other investors, was formed in 1978, and brought to the television screen beauty pageants (Binibining Pilipinas), basketball games (PBA), and later, Eat Bulaga! In 1980, the company was dissolved. In 1981, Romy registered a new company, TAPE, with the SEC.
TAPE cannot possibly, argues Tito, own Eat Bulaga!
"Eto na lang, common sense. 1979 namin itinayo ang Eat Bulaga!. Kami nag-imbento ng title. Papa'no nung 1981, ikaw ang may-ari? Producer ang TAPE ng Eat Bulaga!, pero hindi ikaw ang Eat Bulaga!"
The argument has gone far afield. It now plays in the area of copyrights and inventions, and Tito & Co. have consulted with DivinaLaw, a prominent firm with practice areas that include Intellectual Property Rights.
Tito Sen—as he's often called in the merry mix of entertainment and politics—goes into more of EB! history. He talks about how bleak everything looked for them in 1980. By his telling, Production Specialist, on just its third year, was mired in debt and ceased to operate. "Naubos na yung puhunan nilang P600,000—kinukuwento nung finance person nung araw sa amin, e."
He says, "So, we could have closed shop, but we didn't. The three of us [TVJ] didn't. Yung pang-apat namin, si Chiqui Hollman, umayaw na. So, natira kaming tatlo.
"By 1980, kami lang yung ang puhunan namin, blood, sweat, and tears, because wala kaming suweldo isang taon! Nagtatrabaho ka ng araw-araw, Monday to Saturday, walang suweldo! Isang taon! Hindi ba puhunan na matindi yon—blood, sweat, and tears?"
They had two things going for them, Tito says, brightening.
One, the four of them—TVJ and Tuviera—got along well. So well that, over the next four decades, their lives would intertwine, the professional mixing it up with the personal, and back again. Bibeth Orteza—director of many Holy Week presentations of Eat Bulaga, scriptwriter of several of Vic's Metro Manila Film Festival entries, and writer of Joey's life story for Magpakailanman—tells PEP.ph: "Lahat ng anak ni Vic, ninong si Tony. Hanggang pati sa kasal. Mga anak ni Tito, ninong din si Tony sa kasal. They take being godparents seriously."
And two, they had Iskul Bukol, their sitcom under IBC-13. The show gave them good pay, which was particularly useful because, Tito repeats, nothing was coming from Eat Bulaga!. When Iskul Bukol rose to No. 1 in TV ratings, and had more ads than could fit in a one-hour show, it would become the first sitcom to run for one-hour-and-a-half, and would give TVJ pretty good income for nine years (1978-1987). Iskul Bukol saved them, Tito sums up, during Eat Bulaga!'s bleakest years.
Which is why, when Bullet Jalosjos said, seemingly with all good intentions, in an April 2023 interview that TVJ and the noontime program could not exist without each other—"Eat Bulaga! cannot live without TVJ. And I think, personally, TVJ also cannot live without Eat Bulaga!"—Tito wasn't having it. As he told PEP: "No! No! Binuhay yang Eat Bulaga! ng Iskul Bukol... Hindi kami mapasuweldo ng isang taon!"
Backtracking to the year 1980, when TVJ faced the very real possibility of EB! going under: Tito says the four of them—Tony being the fourth—made the willfull decision to keep EB! going.
"Sabi namin, 'Tuloy lang, tuloy lang, tuloy lang—baka makatsamba tayo.' Eto na, pumasok na yung 'Mr. Macho,' nagri-rating na kami. Biglang nahirapan ang Student Canteen! Nakadikit kami!" (EB!s "Mr. Macho" was a contest that had males flexing dance moves to the catchy 1978 song "Macho Man" by the Village People. Student Canteen was the flagship noontime show of GMA-7 from 1975-1986.)
Then bleakness, again. Money issues, again. Tito says Romy's Production Specialist owed them their salaries for EB!, but till the day the company folded up in 1980, up to the present, it never paid up.
And to hear Tito tell it, they've been conned—not once, but twice.
Jalosjos, after dissolving Production Specialist in '80, opened TAPE in '81. "Pagbukas ng TAPE, sabi sa amin, 'Okay lang, kasi bibigyan kayo ng share dito.' O, di okay na, di ba, bibigyan ka ng share, e. May utang kayo, okay na. Parang eto na yung bayad sa utang, yung share, di ba?"
Only to discover recently, Tito reveals, that they have absolutely no shares in TAPE. "Lalabas-labas, after 43 years, wala kaming share! Seventy-five percent sa Jalosjos family; 25 percent si Tony." The TVJ always believed they had the shares to look forward to in their later years.
"That's why aside from Vic and Joey getting a big amount every month, merong incentives kami coming from TAPE, supposed to be... All the while, we thought na meron...Wala, wala... Natiis namin yung blood, sweat, and tears ang puhunan namin sa Eat Bulaga!, na hindi naman kami mapasuweldo ng isang taon. At pinangakuan kami ng share na wala pala. After 43 years, malalaman namin na wala."
Related Videos:
Watch: Tito Sotto, IBINUKO ang gustong mangyari ng mga Jalosjos sa Eat Bulaga! (PART 1)
Watch: Tito Sotto sa tanong kung NALULUGI ang Eat Bulaga!: "HINDI!" (PART 2)
Watch: Tito Sotto, INILANTAD ang ginawa ng TAPE, Inc. sa kapatid na si Vic Sotto (PART 3)
Watch: Tito Sotto: Ryzza Mae, pinatatanggal; Vic at Joey handa na ring magsalita! (PART 4)
LIE #5: ROMY JALOSJOS WAS ON TOP OF PRODUCTION in EAT BULAGA! ALL THE WAY
Among the things that have gotten Tito Sen angry, one in particular sends him over the edge: claims that Romy Jalosjos was at the helm of the production in Eat Bulaga! over the past 44 years.
It especially disturbs him to hear Romy & Children shooting the breeze about production: extracting segments, upending hosts, getting rid of directors and writers. He says it doesn't surprise him if the Jalosjos Family wants to run the business. If it thinks it can do better than its CEO and President of 42 years, Mr. T, then it can go ahead and try its hand at the money game.
But, he says, incredulous: "Pero production? Saan ka galing? I mean, hindi ba?"
He gets riled just thinking about it.
He tells PEP: "Bakit papalitan mo yung director na napakagaling, na 30-plus years na? Bakit papalitan mo yung head writer na siya may-ari ng ‘Bawal Judgmental,’ ‘Pinoy Henyo,’ at siyempre ‘Juan For All,’ ‘Kalyeserye’… Bakit mo papalitan, di ba? Yun ang nakapagtataka, e. Paano mo biglang pakikialaman yung production? Di ba nila narinig yung If it ain't broke, don't fix it?"
He muses, "Unless you have another agenda…Well, meron silang gustong ipasok na portion na konektado sa party-list, mga ganun. Yung segment na 'Search for Kasambahay.'"
Something that, Tito says, the history of Eat Bulaga! has already proved will not work. EB! had "Maid in the Philippines" over six broken years, he says, and the segment had traction at the start. After a couple of years, the show, finding another sponsor, brought back the segment. It was a flop. Tito says their research and analysis showed: "Yung kasambahay, ayaw nilang ma-highlight na kasambahay sila. Kaya sila mismo, hindi nila pinapanood yung sarili nila. They're not happy to be, you know... Tapos, gusto nila ibalik?"
Other plans swirling around Romy & Sons, says Tito, include: "Alisin si Jenny Ferre [head writer], si Poochie [Rivera], yung direktor, papalitan. Pagkatapos, iri-retain nila si Jose [Manalo], si Allan K, at si Wally [Bayola]. Aalisin yung iba, lahat—sila Ryan [Agoncillo], sila Paolo [Ballesteros], sila Maine [Mendoza], aalisin lahat!"
He has also picked up that they mean to remove Ryzza Mae Dizon, who won EB!'s "Little Miss Philippines" contest when she was six and, at 17, remains a mainstay of the show. Apparently, he says, they want to bring in a child from Dipolog, the capital of their bailiwick Zamboanga del Norte. If it comes to helping create a child star, Tito says, Ryzza Mae can certainly help with the new kid. They can be made a tandem; it will work. So they put their foot down on this: "'Hindi aalisin si Ryzza,' sabi namin. Oo naman daw."
It seems like the TVJ themselves have not been spared. On the face of it, Tito says, the Jalosjos Family hasn't touched the three main hosts. "Pero ang tsismis na nakarating sa amin," he says with a smirk, "gusto rin kaming i-retire. Gusto kaming gawing three times a week na lang. Siguro para bumaba yung presyo dahil nga nalulugi daw."
Tito rues how the Jalosjos Family is making decisions for a show it's never been part of the production of. In the ellipses that follow his sentence, Tito leaves a world unsaid: the use of imagination, of ideas percolating, of trusting instincts and reflexes, of keeping tabs of the public pulse. He says no one in the Family has ever been a part of any of that. "Di nga namin sila nakita ng 43 years!"
Bullet Jalosjos, in his April interviews, had also said: "My dad is an active chair which means he is actively involved in the production, with the designs, with the musicals, with some of the segments that we're gonna have... now more so than ever. As always...siya po yung last say talaga, e. So, every time there's a new segment, every time there's a new show, pinapa-approve talaga yan kay Dad... ever since po."
An exasperated Tito responds: "That’s another false story! In 1979, from the time that we started Eat Bulaga!, up to now, all the portions na pinag-uusapan dun at iniimbento dun, iki-clear sa aming tatlo [TVJ] at kay Tony Tuviera—hindi sa kanila! They don’t have anything to do with production. Paminsan-minsan, merong nire-request na i-guest daw si ganito. Yun lang."
And then, the clincher: "Ibig sabihin, kahit nasa Muntinlupa siya, kini-clear namin? Hindi puwede!"
WHO IS ROMY JALOSJOS, MAJORITY OWNER OF TAPE?
Muntinlupa. The New Bilibid Prison. The National Penitentiary. This is where convicted felons are locked up—and this is where Romeo "Romy" Jalosjos was remanded in 1997.
That year, the Makati Regional Trial Court found him guilty "beyond reasonable doubt of two counts of statutory rape" and "acts of lasciviousness in six counts"; and on November 16, 2001, his violation of the Special Protection of Children against Abuse, Exploitation and Discrimination Act was affirmed by the Supreme Court.
The girl who accused him of raping her was an 11-year-old who had been sold to him by her uncle.
The judgment penned by SC Justice Consuelo Ynares-Santiago said, in part: "That on or about June 18, 1996 at Room No.1702, Ritz Towers, Makati City, and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously have carnal knowledge with (sic) eleven year old minor xxxxxx against her will, with damage and prejudice…
"That in the evening of June 14, 1996, or thereabout, in Room No. 1702, Ritz Towers, Makati City, Metro-Manila and within the jurisdiction of this Honorable Court, the above-named accused, with lewd design, did then and there willfully, unlawfully and feloniously kiss, caress and fondle said complainant's face, lips, neck, breasts, whole body, and vagina, suck her nipples and insert his finger and then his tongue into her vagina, place himself on top of her, then insert his penis in between her thighs until ejaculation, and other similar lascivious conduct against her will, to her damage and prejudice…"
There it is—the elephant in the room.
It is the reason why the Eat Bulaga! staff and stars were stunned when Romy Jalosjos, calling for a general meeting on February 28, 2023, said to them: "We have to reinvent the program. If I have to appear in the show, I will also appear." It is why the man's name, throughout Eat Bulaga's long existence, has hardly been, if at all, mentioned.
A reasonable expectation is that a man so convicted would shy away from the spotlight and let bad feelings lie, but here he was talking about appearing on the biggest noontime show on television. If that, he said, is what it took to reinvent the show.
Maybe no one dares tell the fellow that his crime is not what a happy lunch show—where singing and dancing mix it up with games and contests, where jokes and skits and repartee fill the air, where giveaways of laptops and scholarships and homes mark special moments, where admonitions of peace and love and doing good fly—will want to be associated with.
The tale doesn't end there. Romy Jalosjos was a sitting congressman—First District of Zamboanga del Norte—when he was convicted, so his name has been expunged from the House of Representatives. It was standard for convicted representatives. The House did not want the association.
In 2001, he was ordered to suffer 72 to 93 years in prison. Just six years later, in 2007, his two life sentences were commuted to 16 years by then President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. In another two years, in 2009, the Department of Justice, still under Macapagal-Arroyo, commuted his sentence further due to good behavior. In the end, Jalosjos served just 11 years—ironically, the exact age of the child he had raped.
WHAT HAPPENS TO EAT BULAGA! NOW?
A somber Tito Sotto says, at the end of the PEP interview, "I don't know why all this is happening now. Maybe God is saying something... We don't know. We will see."
Facing the issue of the Jalosjos Family takeover, he says: "Well, kaya naming ipatuloy, ewan ko kung ano ang iniisip nila. Basta kami, itutuloy namin to. Itutuloy naman namin. Ngayon, kung iri-retain nila yung status quo na, you know, zip it and just go on with the program, then gusto pa rin nila yung mga pinag-usapan, na dapat gawin sa publiko para makabawi sila...
"We can wait until December and let’s see how it goes. But if not, you know, if magpapatuloy na magsasalita sa media ng iba, e, teka muna, palagay ko, we have to take one step back and think over our situation."
So, the show is not bleeding?
"E, nakita ko yung SEC financial report ng TAPE for 2021, P213Million net profit. Net profit! 2021, pandemic, di ba? Less na less ang mga advertisements. Pero ni-report mo, P213Million net profit. Papa'nong ang 2022, na halos wala nang COVID at election year, ang daming political ads, sasabihim mo ngayon sa akin na hindi ka naka-P213M net profits at nalulugi ka? Imposible, di ba?"
Is there a scenario where the TVJ, the show's three main players, seizing the name Eat Bulaga!, sets it up as a separate production in a separate network?
"That’s possible. That’s possible. As a matter of fact, I am not…well, how do I say it, I have no problem saying that we’re getting offers from two other stations."
You've consulted a lawyer?
"Of course. We have acquired the services of DivinaLaw to look into everything, into the situation. Kasi it’s not for us, ha, it’s not because of us, it’s because of the small people in the production, yung mga maliliit ang suweldo."
Is there also a scenario where TAPE is left with TAPE, and as TAPE it creates another show?
"That’s possible... Kung ako sila, preserve the status quo na pinag-usapan natin. Tigilan yung magsasalita nang mali sa publiko. Ako, yun ang nakikita kong dapat gawin naming lahat, hindi lang ng TAPE, pati kami. Dahil it’s not gonna do good for the show. Kung hindi sila nagsalita nang ganun, wala kayong maririnig sa amin. Hindi nga kami nagpapa-interview. Ayaw nga naming guluhin yung bangka—baka tumaob, e."
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- NET25 at TV5, interesado sa 'Eat Bulaga!'
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