ABS-CBNâs âAnak ng Dwende,â GMA7âs âAswangâ
 The Manila Times, March 10, 2013
WITH their 6:30 p.m. slots, and with the metropolisâ horrendous traffic, Iâm sure very few broadsheet readers, who are mostly from the middle to upper-class, get to watch two of the foremost television news programs that have been running ever since I can remember, ABS-CBNâs TV Patrol and GMA Networkâs 24 (âBente Kwatroâ) Oras.
For the first time in many years, I watched last Friday the one-and-a- half hours of these two primetime programs, flipping from one station to the other, every time thereâs a commercial, and you wouldnât believe how many of them are. I strongly suggest you do so one of these days, and you will be either shocked, saddened, or angered.
In last Fridayâs TV Patrol, a most distinguished multi-awareded TV journalist, Korina Sanchez, had a feature, maybe even an âinvestigativeâ piece, entitled Anak ng Dwende (A dwarfâs child). (Iâm sure though Sanchez, a hard-nosed journalist, would not on her own touch with a 10-foot pole this story, and that some inane TV news producer just shoved this on her.)
She travelled all the way to âSitio Tinago, Talavera town in Toledo Cityâ (thatâs on the farther, poorer side of Cebu island) to interview a poor young woman, Jenalyn Gimenez, who claimed a dwarf fathered her child, as she didnât have any boyfriend or husband.
Sanchez reports ( translated from Pilipino): âVillagers were surprised one day when she gave birth to a child, since she didnât even have a boyfriend. It is said that the father is a dwarf because the baby was so small, only as big as a soft drink bottle, and his ears were pointed.â
Sanchez interviewed her as she has interviewed probably thousands of newsmakers in her distinguished media career. She asks the woman: How did you get pregnant? The woman answers: âI fell asleep at the punso [a mound of earth, which superstitious Filipinos believe is a dwarfâs home], and thatâs where the dwarf impregnated me.â The camera pans the yard of the womanâs home, as Sanchez voices over: âIt is puzzling that there are many punsos here and it is said that a dwarf residing in one of these fathered Jenalynâs child.â