Tulfo way: threat to powerful, treat for lowly

Nobody is justifying the grave and threatening language the Tulfo brothers used on Raymart Santiago. The remarks could frighten any ordinary soul who must need the Avengers to protect him from harm’s way. Even granting they were expressed passionately out of their love for their aggrieved brother, they forgot that they were unleashing their (personal) tirade on national television and not in a private venue. No wonder, upon the advice of their older brother, they immediately apologized to Raymart for their remarks.

However, that particular lapse in judgment should not be reason enough for the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board to altogether cancel their program and stop the brothers from acting as the mouthpiece of ordinary weak people with valid complaints against the armed, the powerful, the rich, the lazy and the incompetent. Our government is overburdened with everyday problems that even its agencies are not able to cope with urgently and efficiently. The T3 program of the Tulfos, on the other hand, is filling that void as they willingly receive, analyze and ventilate various problems of ordinary folks. As in a reality show, the brothers would get in touch with the plaintiff, demand an explanation, and possibly ask the concerned official to act on the complaint as soon as possible, short of giving him an ultimatum. That’s the way it ought to be—action, not indifference.

You can say that the Tulfos are typecast as pushy or arrogant, but in their line of work, in our bureaucracy and politics, being kind, cordial, friendly and diplomatic is misconstrued as a weakness and does not bring positive result. One has got to have the guts and the right tone in dealing with crooks in the Philippine National Police, or with lazy, abusive, and incompetent barangay officers and indifferent local officials. That’s where the Tulfos come in. They’re men of few words and are very exacting. That’s what makes T3 popular with the masses. I have watched their show and observed their demeanor, and I say that what you see is what you get from the Tulfos. If one wants focused attention and faster results on your complaint against colorum vehicles, double parking, unpaved potholed roads and unattended flooding, etc., there’s no better way but talk to the culprits the Tulfo way.

—POMPEYO S. PEDROCHE,

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