Egypt’s version of Jon Stewart has been grabbing headlines
earlier this year after being accused of insulting Egypt’s President Morsi and
Islam, does the Philippines ever had its own version of Jon Stewart?
By: Ringo Bones
Earlier this year, Egyptian political satirist Bassem
Youssef – more popularly known to the rest of the world as “Egypt’s Jon
Stewart” – became famous beyond his home country after the Egyptian government
issued an arrest warrant against him for allegedly insulting Egyptian president
Mohammed Morsi and Islam. After embroiled in such hot water, Bassem Youssef got
invited by the real Jon Stewart to appear as a guest in The Daily Show With Jon
Stewart. As a former heart surgeon turned host of his very own political satire
show titled The Program, Bassem Youssef is only one of the countless activists
in Egypt choosing to use political satire to inspire change to a government
that still seem to be trapped in the quagmire of the over 30-year Mubarak
dictatorship. Given that Egypt has its own version of Jon Stewart, isn’t it
high time for the Philippines to also have its very own version of Jon Stewart?
Back in the early 1990s, the closest thing for the
Philippines of having its very own version of Jon Stewart was a then very
popular political satire show – now largely forgotten – titled Mongolian
Barbecue where a self-styled Mongolian host named Mr. Shooli poked fun at the
topical political issues of the day – especially the day’s buzzwords and
sound-bytes. Mongolian Barbecue fans today will likely remember the “Political
Wheel” – used to poke fun on Filipino politicians of the early 1990s who lacked
political will. And every self-respecting Mongolian Barbecue fans will probably
still remember those “Behest Man” jokes. Given that dysfunctional Filipino
politicians are litigious as Hell, a Doonesbury like cartoon strip called Pugad Baboy was sued
by a Estrada administration crony back in 1999 after it poked fun at widespread
nepotism and cronyism in Philippine politics that was then still alive and
kicking years after the Marcos dictatorship.
So is it high time for the Philippines to have its own
version of Jon Stewart? Young folks today – as in Filipino millennials – would
probably say: “Hell Yes!!! Well, I mean there is a lot of that contemporary
dystopia we lovingly call the Philippine society to poke fun and satirize
about. The Philippine educational system alone has been begging to be poked fun
at after it has became a parody of itself by voluntary electing itself to be
run like a 13th Century Catholic / Abrahamic theocracy since the mid
1990s. I mean the Philippine Department of Education only respects one’s belief
system if it revolves around a Middle Eastern charlatan that lived centuries
ago and then ruthlessly evangelized by a bloodthirsty Medieval-era European warlord
or a variant thereof. Belief systems
revolving around healing crystals and enlightened technologically advanced
extraterrestrial beings capable of interstellar travel need not apply in the
Philippines Department of Education for starters. This alone is not bad for a
first episode for your very own political satire show. Sadly, if a Filipino comedian reminiscent of
Mr. Shooli was around in the Philippines these days and is as active and as “civic
minded” as him during his heyday in the early 1990s, he – or she – would be
immediately targeted for extra-judicial killing or threatened with
ex-communication by the Philippine Vatican Princes just for “telling like it is”.
