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MANILA, Philippines—Imagine life without movies, music and television.
Not funny.
And you’re not alone. But because of the runaway prices of ... well, everything, even Filipinos who consider watching movies in cinemas or buying recorded music as necessities have had to modify their routines, some more drastically than others.
For Jane Diestro, a single parent, movie-watching in mall cinemas is more than entertainment; it’s quality time with her son Tyrone, 9.
Mother and son started the habit three years ago, seeing one or two movies a week. A cinema ticket cost P90 to P120 at the time. Now, it can cost up to P175. They have since cut in half the frequency of their outings.
“I set aside money for these trips to the theater,” says Diestro, 27. “Otherwise, Tyrone wouldn’t come with me because shopping bores him.” All told, each trip costs her at least P500, including food and drinks.
Occasionally, when work makes the weekly outing difficult, Diestro, a call center costumer service rep for KGB Phils., buys DVDs and watches them with her son at home. It’s a much cheaper way, too, of having fun, she points out, each disc costing from P35 to P45.
Plus, Diestro says, “We can watch a movie that we like again and again.”
When Diestro chooses a cinema for her date with Tyrone, her prime considerations are comfort, viewing quality and convenience. She is willing to spend a few extra pesos on theaters with stadium seats.
“Tyrone complains when he has difficulty seeing the screen (such as) if the person in front of him is too tall,” she says.
Now, it’s the Net
Ellaine Peña, 30, single, is also a movie fan. Now, she downloads movies from the Net to her personal computer.
Peña points to the websites www.mininova.org and www.torrentvalley.com as her favorite sites. “I burn the movies on discs,” she says, “and watch them at home. Some I even share with friends.”
Also, she’d rather now spend weekend nights out with friends at their favorite coffee shop. She shells out from P300 to P400, not counting gas money, for such a get-together.
If they go bar-hopping, instead, Peña says she and her fellow account managers at Sykes Asia Inc. (also a call center) are likely to spend P600 to P1,000 each.
Hanging out and watching movies are important for working girls like her, Peña insists. “Work sometimes drives you crazy. These diversions keep you sane.”
No more popcorns
Max Aficial, 20, a geography major at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, shares Peña’s views.
“Movie-watching takes my mind away from school worries,” says Aficial, who makes sure to take in at least two movies a month. “But I need to save up for it, or else I use up my allowance for food and reading materials.”
Aficial is also a guitar enthusiast and his alternative to movies is surfing the Net, which allows him to search for his favorite songs’ tabs and chords, and communicate with relatives and friends abroad for free, using various sites with chat engines.
Emma Pelmagil, 32, and Rose Lecot, 28, make less than P5,000 monthly combined as helpers in a middle-class household in Parañaque. They love Tagalog movies, which they catch mostly on television.
Because they need to stick to their budgets, one trip to the moviehouse a month is good enough for them, they say. Where they used to buy popcorn and soda, they now bring with them snacks from home. And they enjoy themselves as usual.
Video substitute
In fact, they don’t mind missing going to the movies once a month if there’s nothing “really good” to see. The last movie they saw was “Dobol Trobol,” starring Dolphy and Vic Sotto.
For Peña, video game consoles, such as Nintendo Wii, DS, DS Lite, Sony PSP and Playstation 3, are the best substitutes for movie-watching. Recently, she bought the latest Wii model for P23,000—a pretty hefty sum up front but economical in the long run.
“You can bond with family and friends, play all sorts of games with them. I can even play tennis with my mom without leaving the house,” Peña says.
(A video game console is an interactive entertainment electronic device that can be viewed on computer monitors and televisions. It is distinct from a machine used solely for playing from a personal computer.)
Survey says….
Going out to the cinemas to watch a Filipino movie is a pastime of a minority of local movie lovers, according to one survey.
In a survey commissioned by the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP) in 2006, Social Weather Stations found that 77 percent of the respondents watch Filipino movies on television. Only 7 percent make the effort to go to the cinema.
“The results clearly indicate that television is today’s mass medium,” says Rolando Atienza, FDCP chair. “Instead of going to moviehouses, majority of Filipinos would rather wait for local movies to be aired on TV.”
No ‘bakya crowd’
Atienza says the survey also showed a shift in the configuration of the local movie market.
The survey found that 63.4 percent of the 7 percent who still make it a point to go to the cinemas belong to the “educated” classes.
In the past, the so-called “bakya” crowd (the masses) was tagged as the local movie industry’s main market. The survey showed the “changing face” of this mass audience.
Roughly 50 percent of local moviegoers consist of high school graduates and college students, while 14 percent are college graduates and post-graduate students, according to the survey.
Educational attainment indicates financial well-being which, in turn, is equated with purchasing power, Atienza says.
“Today’s moviegoers consist mostly of people from the educated sectors,” he says, adding that logic dictates that only those who “are gainfully employed could afford the rising costs of going to the movies.” With a report from Bayani San Diego Jr.
