FOCUS ON MENTAL HEALTH: Let me just focus on mental health this time. Forget the other key elements as press freedom, politicking, freedom of expression, unemployment, economic well-being of more than 11,000 employees. What do you think is the immediate, ultimate effect of ABS-CBN’s shutdown on our people’s mental health?
Within just a second, their lifeline to entertainment and its many possibilities has been cut off. This happens at a time when the country is on a lockdown to curb a deadly virus.
All this time, we have been thinking of ways and means to keep ourselves busy, occupied. An idle mind, they say, is the playground of the devil. We turn to TV, related media, to keep ourselves entertained. There’s news, but then, there’s also entertainment, for the most part. Take that away from us, and what happens to our state of being, our mental health?
TV’S KEY ROLE: TV plays a key role, not just in information dissemination, but in keeping the state of our mental health in good shape. TV may be one vast Wasteland for some, but it plays a unique role in our life. It help us while away the time, lull us to sleep as we try to forget our woes. They keep us dreaming of better tomorrows. Just ask the millions of Filipinos who follow Ricardo Dalisay in “FPJ’s Ang Probinsyano.”
When people lose a major network, a key outlet to entertain themselves, they feel a void in their consciousness, their connection to the outside world, their lifeline to their dreams.
Let’s not take it away from them. Not at this time, this most vulnerable time, most especially, please.
