Extra Challenge - ang Pambansang Field Trip

I'm watching actress Lorna Tolentino taking the job of a care giver in Canada in Extra Challenge, a reality-TV show on GMA.

Like many Filipinos from Batanes to Tawi-tawi, I've followed the travails of many a-challengers in various "real-life" adventures....

Extra Kwentuhan

I rode an ordinary bus where Angel Aquino was the all-sweat konduktora shepherding her flock of pasaheros, weaving her bus through the urban traffic.

I took a joyride in a van with Alfie Vargas and Alessandra de Rossi that took us through Bulacan and ended up in Sagada.

I've been on a trip with Joyce Jimenez, Andrew E, Patricia Javier (?). We went to around India, Malaysia, Thailand seeing their sites, got exposed to their culture, dancing their dances, listening to their songs and chants.

I've seen through Osang how a DH in Hong Kong has to forego time (maybe a lifetime) with her own children to tend to someone elses kids.

I watched two "newly-wed" celebrity couples live a day in a squatter area under a bridge. Chyna Hortaleza washed clothes without water(!) while Nancy Castiliogne "lost" one of her foster children.

And through the exploits of these adventurers on TV, I learn about the situation of Filipinos in slum areas, of the extra-ordinary lives of ordinary Filipinos, about other peoples cultures, about a life other than mine.

It's voyeurism and pag-usiyoso at its best. This show has reached heights in mainstream infotainment that neither Probe Team nor Hiraya Manawari have attained.

Because this TV show is taking the nation on a field trip one place at a time, hundreds of thousand TV sets at a time.

- Edwin

Visit: Extra Challenge Blog