Getting cheated while watching the Oscars

Today the country is celebrating the anniversary of the EDSA revolution of 1986 and so Malacanang declared that today is a non-working holiday at the last minute (just last week). And luckily so--for me at least. That's because I got to stay home and watch the Academy Awards ceremony.

Unfortunately, this latest of holidays didn't start out too well. There was supposed to be telecast "live" of the Oscar awards this morning at 9:30am according to ABS-CBN. But I was disappointed this morning when I turned on the tv to tune in just past 9:35am and found a cartoon show on instead. I frantically surfed through other channels to see if the awards were being shown elsewhere but to no avail. At last around 9:45am, the telecast started. Ah, I thought, how typical.

Who else observes "Filipino time" better than ABS-CBN? They apparently don't have a programming schedule at all--or at least aren't disciplined enough to follow one--and simply advertise that so-and-so tv show will be shown after this other tv show and not starting at a specific time. This practice makes it virtually impossible for people to program their VCRs or DVD recorders in order to record a certain show. I should know. I spent two months the other year recording local telenovelas for my mom who was then abroad. It was such a nightmare having to wait for a show to start instead of simply turning on the tv and the VCR at the appointed time. But I digress...

I was complaining about the late start of the so-called "live" telecast of the Oscars. Now, isn't this late start basis for false advertisement as well? The ceremonies were supposed to be shown live and yet while chatting with my sister in Canada, I found that the ceremonies had started right on time at 9:30am and that three awards had already been given out by that time. Thus this was no live telecast at all but a delayed telecast. In fact, I was not surprised when there were unusually long commercial breaks (I know commercial breaks in the US are comparatively short) and there was some obvious editing done. For example, just after one award was given the telecast would cut, without showing the exit of the previous winner, to the next presenter in the middle of delivering his lines. Sure enough after going through the list of winners on the Internet I realized that the awarding of best documentary short film, best animated short film and best make-up--and who knows what other features or program numbers--were omitted from the telecast.

Ah well. At least Ratatouille won this year's best animated feature film.