WATCH OUT, TELEVISION! You better listen to the students when they tell you what they like or not like about your programs.

It was all about youth power at the awards night of the fifth University of Santo Tomas Students’ Choice Awards for Television (USTv) last February 19. A total of 24 awards were given to TV shows and personalities in different categories.

“Student awards are intimidating. When we don’t win, we ask ourselves, where did we go wrong? But when we win, I feel like we’re doing something right and that our program is behaving,” said Jessica Soho, whose “Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho” won the Students’ Choice of Magazine Program.

The awards were conceptualized and organized to make the students “more discerning in their capacity to choose and evaluate (the TV programs) they watch,” said UST secretary-general Fr. Isidro Abaño, OP.

The awards are based on a survey of students’ television preferences. Using Catholic and humanist criteria, UST students voted for their favorite programs. The survey, designed by the UST Social Research Center, surveyed 6,529 students.

The results went to a student-dominated board of judges (inclouding this year’s Movie and Television Review and Classification Board chair Consoliza Laguardia and Inquirer columnist Rina David) who checked whether the final choices lived up to the demanding criteria of the awards, such as “promotion of Christian values” and “reflection of the Thomasian ideal of truth in charity.”

Strict criterion

Each category also has a criterion specific to the genre. For example, the criterion for Students’ Choice of Reality TV Program:

“Despite its name, reality television is really a construction. It is a ‘construction’ on the lives of ostensibly real people in a highly controlled setting, purportedly on a 24/7 coverage. By the nature of reality TV, there is a tendency toward voyeurism which the Christian viewer must deal with critically. In some instances, characters in a reality TV show, by virtue of their isolation as a result of the controlled setting they’re in, are made to ‘naturally’ gravitate toward one another, resulting in illicit or near-illicit liaisons. The Christian viewer must view these artificial narratives of distorted relationships with care. If reality TV is, like any TV program, a construction, then there’s no reason it cannot be made to construct what is positive, moral, and uplifting.”

(“Pinoy Dream Academy Season 2” won best reality TV program this year.)

Best prepared awards

The results were announced to an excited crowd last Feb. 19.
“Without exaggeration, and I think the Kapuso and the Kapamilya will agree, this is the best prepared, [most] professionally executed [TV award-giving body],” said Mike Enriquez, the Students’ Choice of Male News and Public Affairs Host.

“You’ve done this tonight without a single commercial on the screens, not one single advertisement in your printed program, and I salute you for this,” he said.

This year’s winners were “Y Speak” on Studio 23, which won the Students’ Choice of Public Affairs Talk Show Program; “Family Rosary Crusade,” Students’ Choice of Catholic Program; “ASAP ’08,” Most Popular Variety Show; and “Maalala Mo Kaya,” Students’ Choice of Drama Program.

Michael V. and Ogie Alcasid gave an impromptu skit straight out of “Bubble Gang.” Their show was named Most Popular Gag Show.

Heartthrob John Lloyd Cruz won the Students’ Choice of Actor in a Daily Local Soap Opera award for “I Love Betty la Fea” while Anne Curtis received USTv Students’ Choice of Actress for “Dyosa.”

UST alumna Sarah Geronimo was named the Most Popular Local Music Video Performer, and her video for “A Very Special Love” was hailed as the Most Popular Local Music Video.

UST alumnus Arnold Clavio was given the Speculum Veritatis (Mirror of Truth) Award for broadcast journalism and his advocacy for children’s welfare through the Igan Foundation.

“Never tire of scrutinizing media,” said Bernadette Sembrano. Students’ Choice of Female News and Public Affairs Host.

It’s a challenge taken with all seriousness by the Thomasian studentry.

Full list of winners at www.ust.edu.ph.