Eugenio Villareal, chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, speaks about the top-rating Philippine daytime television show Be Careful With My Heart.
By Girlie Linao
Cynthia Lazaro dedicates almost her entire day to household chores and taking care of her two teenage daughters and husband, except for 45 minutes when she takes time off to watch her favourite soap on television.
The 44-year-old housewife only skips the soap when she has to be at her daughters’ school for meetings with their teachers.
“Otherwise, I make sure that I only leave home after the show,” she said. “And if I really must leave before, I have to be out early so that by the time the show is on, I’ll be in a place where there is a television.”
“If all else fails, I watch the episode I missed on the Internet!”
Lazaro is one of millions of fans of the top-rating Philippine daytime television show, Be Careful With My Heart, who have re-arranged their daily routines to be able to watch the series that tackles Filipinos’ day-to-day struggle without any over-the-top drama and judgement.
Soap operas or telenovelas have become a big part of the Filipino culture as television evolves into one of the strongest forms of media in the Philippines.
“The telenovelas are a transposition of the hopes, dreams and aches of the Filipino,” said Eugenio Villareal, chairman of the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board. “Filipinos are very much influenced by what they see in the telenovelas.”
More than two dozens soaps are currently showing on Philippine television from mid-morning to late evening. But it’s only Be Careful With My Heart that Lazaro follows religiously and feels bad about missing. “It has a simple plot that tugs at the heart of Filipinos because it’s so romantic and realistic that the story can happen to anyone,” she said.
“It’s a comedy, love story that’s very positive,” she added. “It’s also about the family, and how family members all should help each other. It tells us that as long as your family is behind you, nothing is impossible.”
Be Careful’s story revolves around the life of a young Filipino woman from the provinces, Maya De La Rosa, who was forced to work as a nanny for the three problematic children of a rich widower after she was swindled by a recruiter for a non-existent job overseas.
Maya agreed to be a nanny but only if her boss, Richard Lim, known by his nickname Sir Chief, helps her finish her studies to pursue her dream of becoming a flight attendant to help her family out of poverty.
As Maya helped the children recover from the death of their mother and Richard reconnect with his kids, the two main characters fall in love and become a couple.
Through Maya and Richard’s journey, the show tells the story of any Filipino who struggle daily with different hardships, from leaking roofs to the disconnection of electricity services for failing to pay the bill, to being abandoned by a father.
“We wanted to tell a story that is grounded and real,” said Ginny Ocampo, head of the show’s production team at ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. “These are stories that are realities for many Filipinos.”
But the new soap had to be a light drama similar to the Korean telenovelas that have become big hits in the Philippines for their fast-paced, funny and uncomplicated story plots, Ocampo said.
Aside from watching popular Korean soaps, the creative team also drew inspiration from such foreign productions as The Sound of Music, Pretty Woman, and the US television series The Nanny.
“We were so used to heavy plots that we weren’t sure how to do it,” Ocampo said. “We were all feeling our way and we had to learn and unlearn a lot of things.”
Be Careful premiered in July 2012 and immediately became a hit, with ratings steadily rising and averaging 25% of 10.5mn daytime television viewers nationwide, according to Kantar Media Research Philippines.
While the show was supposed to air for only 13 weeks or until October, it is now on its 50th week, Ocampo said.
“Nobody expected that the show will become a hit,” she said. “The initial target for Be Careful was housewives or people at home. We didn’t expect to get fans from viewers who couldn’t watch it on TV during its time slot. But people are finding ways to watch it.”
Be Careful is now the most watched show on ABS-CBN’s online portals and a movie version is planned for the end of the year, Ocampo said.
Even foreigners have become fans of Be Careful, which is shown on ABS-CBN’s international channel in the United States and Canada. It will soon be shown in Kazakhstan and Malaysia, and the network has received inquiries from Africa, Ocampo said.
The show has become so popular that office workers watch from mobile phones to keep up to date and some skip their lunch break to catch the show. “We’ve been told that in some government offices, it’s best not to transact business with them during the time slot of Be Careful because everyone is watching,” Villareal said.
Filipinos are drawn to Be Careful because “it’s a feel-good series,” he added. “The viewers identify with the characters, especially Maya, who you will always root for because you wouldn’t want her to fail.”
With a third of the Philippines’ population living in poverty and thousands of Filipinos leaving for work overseas every day in hopes of a better life, Maya’s strong and resilient character is also an inspiration, said sociologist Josephine Placido.
“The show gives hope to the hopeless and gives dignity to labour, no matter how low the stature of the job is,” said Placido, chairman of the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Santo Tomas.
“You see Maya taking pride in her job as a nanny, and not giving up on her dream to be a flight stewardess even if it’s difficult for her to study and work at the same time,” she added.
Placido, who is a fan of the show herself, said Be Careful is like a “book of instructions” that gives suggestions on how to deal with day-to-day problems while it also provides “stress-free” entertainment.
Lazaro agreed that she learns from situations on the show on how to deal with future problems. She added that the soap is just what she needs to start her day right: “Life is already hard. We don’t need more headaches and heartaches. This gives us something to laugh about and makes every day seem light.” — DPA
