You’ve gotta be kidding me

Everybody, welcome Shale’s first – and hopefully not the last – guest columnist, Travieso. Starting today, and probably once in a month or so, he will be writing his thoughts about everything that’s going on around him, from national issues to ones that are closer to his backyard. And, no, this really is a new columnist, although obviously Travieso is a pseudonym…

Other than the government-subsidized rice access cards currently being distributed to the “poorest of the poor” by the DSWD, the Arroyo administration has come up with another significant poverty reduction program triggered by the shortage in supply and price increase of rice. The Ahon Pamilyang Pinoy (APP) is a five-year program that seeks to aid about 300,000 families living beyond “poor” belonging to the 20 poorest provinces in the country by handing them P500 every month and an additional P300 for every child who goes to class at least 85% of the time with a maximum of three children. The administration has declared its willingness to allot five billion pesos for this program.

Whether or not the administration is doing this to save itself from the havoc hunger can create doesn’t matter – for now, that is. That’s simply because the only thing that matters right now is survival – something which Fr. Anton Pascual of Caritas Manila, with all due respect, of course, seemingly hasn’t realized yet. The latter claimed that the APP was “antipoor, gives the poor no dignity, and only breeds dependency.”

Nine-ty-nine point fiiive…

I quickly turned the radio on at half past five in the morning on Easter Sunday. Most radio stations were warming up their transmitters, after the customary Lenten break, and the music was sounding very familiar. Online, the forums were abuzz with eager listeners, waiting for word on what the station will sound like when the day finally kicks in.

Then the prayer kicks in. For the past four years or so, I have always heard that prayer during start-up, and every morning, at around five minutes before six, before Joe Schmoe or (eventually) Da Kid would take the console. This time, though, it came fifteen minutes earlier, and we were waiting for other voices to come on air.

After an ad break – which removed doubts from listeners that it is, indeed, a different station – a really tacky dance track came up, ruining the alternative-leaning tracks that were played in the warm-up process. Even before the song could kick in, though, they interrupted it.

Redefining the variable

It’s been more than a year since xFM was launched on the radio dial. It stood out for playing a really different mix of music- a combination of trip-hop, downtempo, indie folk and the occasional Coldplay – and listeners who tried the station loved what they heard. The launch may have been as discreet as it could be, but word quickly got out, and for those who were disenfranchised by the seeming lack of choice on the dial, it was a welcome addition.

But something happened along the way. Around three months after the launch, xFM started to revert back to its predecessor, 923 Joey. The music, at least, featured older tracks that otherwise was a distraction from what they have branded as a “liquid” sound. One hour went from atmospheric to Michael Jackson’s The Girl Is Mine – and, for me at least, it was a little confusing. That state of affairs continued until, somewhat fed up with the disjointed feel xFM was starting to show, I left.

It stayed that way throughout the first year of the station. At one point, it attempted to define itself once again: one advertisement set itself to play jazz by day, and chill at night. A more familar sound, at least to older listeners, slowly invaded the entire day, to the point that the music that defined xFM initially was stuck on Sunday nights. Eventually, xFM flipped – from confused to smooth jazz.