PBB Management's Answer to Circulating E-mail

An email circulating in the media about supposed anomalies in the program PINOY BIG BROTHER SEASON 2 has reached us. We would like to clarify certain malicious points that were raised in said anonymous letter. We are hoping that this letter will clear the clouds surrounding the recent events in the program.

01. The letter was supposedly written by an MA Masscom graduate, who was part of the news and current affairs division before supposedly doing “conceptualization of some reality shows particularly the current one, PBB”. We would like to put on record that no such staffer from the program exists. There is only one staffer of the program who comes from the news and current affairs division, and that staffer started with the program in Season 1, and not just this season, as the writer of the letter claimed.

02. PINOY BIG BROTHER is a franchise of the Endemol-owned BIG BROTHER and is not “conceptualized” locally as the letter implicated. Even the tasks done inside the house are based on a production bible.

03. The letter-writer also mentioned the positions “conceptualizer” and “talent auditors”. This is the first time that we hear of such positions in our company. The creative group includes the following positions: creative manager, headwriter, writer, brainstormer and researcher. In the case of PINOY BIG BROTHER, the creative group is composed of the chief story editor, senior story editor, story editors and researchers. There is also no such thing as a “talent auditor” in ABS-CBN.

04. The letter-writer claimed to have been part of the screening process and has even noted some of the criteria that we supposedly take into consideration. The fact of the matter is that there is only a core group in charge of the screening process, and this includes ABS CBN Management, business unit head, executive producers, chief story editor and the senior story editor. No “conceptualizer” is part of the screening process.

05. The letter-writer also claimed that during the season, the group had to choose the Top 100 of the batch. The fact is that no Top 100 exists. After the extensive screening process, the core group sat down through a string of meetings to come up with the Top 30 of the batch.

06. The letter also called our business unit head, Director Lauren Dyogi as “direk dyogi”. As a matter of fact, no one in the staff calls him by that monicker. He is officially known and called LMD or Direk Lauren. Thus, it is quite obvious that the letter-writer is not part of the staff of the current PINOY BIG BROTHER season.

07. The letter also claimed the following: “the path of the contest is already drawn, and the voting only affects the decision minimally… this only tells us who the public wants to see again inside the house.” This is not true. Even the staff does not know who will be evicted until the office of ABS CBN Interactive reveals the final tally after the closing of votes. There is no way that these results can be rigged and every vote is on record with the office of ABS CBN Interactive. The final voting process, which started after the eviction of housemate Robert, is closely monitored by a third party, namely SGV and Co, to validate the votes.

08. The letter claimed that during the eviction of housemate Nel, “Nel got the 2^nd lowest number of votes, wendy got the lowest. But the administrators think that perhaps the wendy-bruce loveteam is still up, so we had to give it one last shot. If the ratings go down, or if on Tuesday (the next eviction night), wendy still gets the lowest vote, she’s out of the contest.” The statement is maliciously fabricated. The episode of the program shown last night, where the percentage of votes and the actual number of votes garnered by Nel and Bruce, clearly showed that it was not Wendy who got the second lowest vote but Bruce, and the trend did not change until Bruce’s eviction on Tuesday.

Hopefully, this would answer the points raised by the malicious letter-writer who can not even divulge his/her name, gender and current position in ABS CBN. The entire letter is a poor attempt to discredit PINOY BIG BROTHER because all the accusations are fabricated, along with the identity of the letter-writer. The name and franchise PINOY BIG BROTHER stands by the integrity of the public vote and will not in any way, discredit the voting public from whose sentiment the program really relies on.

And we do not think that any staffer would wish and campaign for the ratings to go down, because every staffer would want to enjoy credible ratings to ensure the stability of the network to which he belongs.

The letter-writer asked and we quote “where is the morality in that, abs-cbn?” Definitely not in the malicious letter that was written.

PBB MANAGEMENT