Miriam, Rufa, Pinky in ‘docu’ about single ladies
"All men beware! 'Relationship Status: SINGLE' bares the truth that more and more single women are now realizing: happiness can be found even without men." This is how GMA News TV hyped the aforementioned program so when I tuned in to the show last night, I expected a lot of male bashing from hosts Miriam Quiambao and Rufa Mae Quinto. Miriam got a divorce from Italian businessman Claudio Rondinelli after a marriage that lasted for only two years. She admitted in an interview two years ago that Rondinelli was unfaithful to her. Rufa Mae, on the other hand, was reportedly planning to get married this year but if press reports were to be believed, she cancelled her plan for still undisclosed reasons.
I also didn't hear any unsavory remarks about the men in her life from another single lady, Pinky Amador, who still has not found Mr. Right after seven to eight serious relationships. She cited not living in the same country as one of the causes of the breakups but preferred to play safe by saying that "it was not meant to be."
The three ladies were still very open to finding happiness in the company of men. The three were unanimous in not getting sexually involved with men without commitment and each one still looked forward to finding a husband. Pinky believes in finding the right partner she can spend the rest of her life with, "yung friend mo, matino at maasahan." Miriam falls back on religion: "Christ died for me to remain pure. Yung purity ko as a woman hindi ko basta ibibigay. I got married na once. Now that I'm single again, I want to preserve it. It needs to be given when it's the right time and the right time is after marriage."
On having younger or older men as partners, Miriam prefers older men, even men 10 years her senior because she wants someone she can look up to. Pinky agrees. Rufa Mae, who surprised me when she admitted she was 31 years old, prefers younger men because they want to prove themselves and "you can't teach old dogs new tricks."
The program was also billed as a documentary about unmarried women who preferred to stay single. Again, the GMA press release states "Data from the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) reveal that 6 out of 100 Filipinas from 35-49 years old have never been married, a number up from ten years ago. Many of them remain single by choice."
We checked the figures on the NCSB website and discovered the figures were actually 18.3 out of 100 Filipinas in 1993 and 18.6 in 2008. That represents a miniscule increase of .01 percent. I couldn't find any data that supported the conclusion that many remained single by choice. A socio-anthropologist cited a UP study in Manila in 2006 that surveyed 221 women age 40 and above. The findings: 68% of women chose to be single while 40% said they were forced by circumstance to remain single. My problem with these figures, aside from the fact that they add up to 108%, is one cannot assume that what holds true for Manila is true for the entire country. Other so-called experts on the show were supposed to validate its main argument but they only offered observations without citing any evidence.
"Relationship Status: Single" will be better appreciated not as a docu but as an all-female talk show similar to "The View" with Whoopi Goldberg, Barbara Walters and others and "The Talk" with Julie Chen, Sharon Osbourne, Leah Remini and others. Miriam, Pinky and Rufa Mae could give those stateside hosts a run for their money..
If GMA News TV wants to do a docu , then the network should be more studious about data they present to the viewers. That's why it's called a documentary, from the root word "document." As a verb it means "corroborate, verify, substantiate, validate." There was very little "validating" done on the subject matter. What I got were observations from three opinionated single ladies.
Entertaining? Yes. The show even used skits to dramatize the hosts' points of view.
Well-documented? No. Statistics were printed on 11" x 14" cards held by models. The director did not even give viewers the courtesy of a close-up shot of the information on the cards. Once every three to five minutes, the director would cut to the show's title, as if that would quicken the pace of the program. Sorry direk, it didn't work.
