GMA Network says it will
keep 'Probe Team' show
Posted: 0:59 AM (Manila Time) | Sept. 30, 2003
By Alcuin Papa and Margie Quimpo-Espino
Inquirer News Service
ABS-CBN interested
THE "Probe Team" television magazine show goes on at GMA Network.
This was the response of the television and radio giant to reports that rival ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. was interested in the award-winning program.
GMA Network issued the statement after indicating it wanted to ax the show after 16 years over an episode featuring a lifestyle check on Efraim Genuino, chairperson of government casino operator Philippine Amusement and Gaming Corp. (Pagcor).
GMA Network president Felipe Gozon said the show could be canceled only when the two parties "have a date to do so."
The Probe Team is a co-production of GMA Network and the group of the program's producer, Che Che Lazaro. The contract between GMA Network and Lazaro's group is scheduled to end in January.
"A co-production agreement with two groups is like a partnership," Gozon said. "It is based on mutual trust and confidence. When the standards are different, this will affect the image of the two and it is no longer advisable or desirable to continue."
Lazaro flew out of the country a few hours after GMA Network vice president Marissa Flores met with her at Lazaro's home Friday night.
Flores and GMA Network project unit manager Ricky Escudero asked Lazaro at the meeting when she would air the last episode of the show.
GMA Network corporate communications head Butch Raquel said Monday that nothing had been finalized. "We can't speculate on that (transfer to ABS-CBN) if it's still with us," he said.
Raquel indicated that as of now the situation could go either way. "For all we know," he said, GMA Network's axing the show "might never happen."
Talk was rife that GMA Network would drop "The Probe Team" because of the controversy that surrounded the cancellation of the episode on Genuino on Sept. 16.
The network management held off the airing of the episode until Lazaro's group could come up with more documents to support its conclusion that Genuino owned shares in several corporations that he did not declare in his statements of assets and liabilities for February 2001, December 2001 and December 2002.
The day after the management held off the show, The Probe Team went to the University of the Philippines' College of Mass Communication and aired the controversial episode. Lazaro, whose husband, Delfin, is a cousin of Gozon, cried censorship.
GMA Network aired the show last Tuesday with some changes. "We wanted them to put in more supporting data so their conclusion can stand," Gozon said. "Is that censorship?"
"We have the power to destroy a person's reputation," he said. "We can make the reputation of a person very good or very bad. Before you destroy a reputation, you should have basis. We would rather err in good faith. At least we tried."
"The objective is to have a balanced and responsible delivery of news," Gozon added.
Gozon, a lawyer, said what he wanted was simply for The Probe Team to check on updated documents of the companies linked to Genuino. He noted that many corporations were not efficient in regularly submitting amended articles of incorporation. The data the Lazaro group got were documents dated in the early 1980s.
'Why not?'
Over at ABS-CBN Corp., its two top executives gave differing views on whether to get "The Probe Team" if GMA Network would let go of the award-winning show.
"Why not?" ABS-CBN president and chief operating officer Federico Garcia said at a lunch for business journalists Monday. "They started with us."
Garcia said ABS-CBN had asked Lazaro to be its news director.
ABS-CBN chairperson and chief executive officer Eugenio Lopez III sounded more noncommittal, citing his network's practice of not co-producing shows.
"All our news are internal," Lopez said. "We don't co-produce."
"All our slots are full," he added.
When asked if ABS-CBN would hire the Genuino episode's producer, Bernadette Sembrano, if she would quit GMA Network, Lopez said it might not be a good idea. "It is demoralizing to always get talents from the outside," he said. "It does not work."
ABS-CBN in the past pirated several talents of GMA Network, such as Luchi Cruz-Valdes, DJ Santa Ana and Karen Davila.
Gozon said the pulling out of Sembrano from anchoring GMA Network's "Saksi" newscast was due to the attitude she displayed on TV.
When the announcement came that the controversial Genuino episode was going to be aired, the camera panned to Sembrano who was looking very angry and upset. She walked out of the set.
"Sembrano is not with 'The Probe Team,' she is with us [GMA Network]," Gozon said. "She should not cross her professional obligation between the two."
Editor's note: GMA Network is a parent of INQ7.net
erratum ko sa last post: 1980s pa pala ang data na ginamit, di 1990s. sorry.