ABC network apologized this week for a dialogue in the hit series “Desperate Housewives” which pokes fun at medical education in the Philippines that prompted angry calls and e-mails from thousands of viewers around the world, and an online petition from Philippine officials and medical leaders demanding an apology.
“The producers of ‘Desperate Housewives’ and ABC Studios offer our sincere apologies for any offense caused by the brief reference in the season premiere,” the one-paragraph ABC statement read.
“There was no intent to disparage the integrity of any aspect of the medical community in the Philippines. As leaders in broadcast diversity, we are committed to presenting sensitive and respectful images of all communities featured in our programs.”
Several Philippine government officials, from Health Secretary Francisco Duque and Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, [and] actor-turned-Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. expressed dismay and sought an apology on behalf of the Filipino people and medical workers.
In the United States, Philippine Ambassador Willy Gaa and New York Consul General Cecilia Rebong sent ABC separate letters of protest.
At a community gathering at the Kalayaan Hall of the Philippine Center on Fifth Avenue Wednesday night held for visiting Vice President Noli de Castro, Rebong strongly condemned the insulting joke before some 200 Fil-Am community members who gave Rebong wild applause and cheers.
At “Desperate Housewives” season’s premiere aired in the U.S. East Coast on Sept. 30, the character of Susan, played by actress Teri Hatcher, goes in for a medical checkup and is shocked when the doctor suggests she may be going through menopause.
“Listen, Susan, I know for a lot of women the word ‘menopause’ has negative connotations. You hear ‘aging,’ ‘brittle bones,’ ‘loss of sexual desire,’” the gynecologist tells her.
Susan fires back: “Okay, before we go any further, can I check those diplomas [on the wall]? Just to make sure they aren’t, like, from some med school in the Philippines?”
It has become an international incident that newspapers from other countries picked up the story and the evening news worldwide broadcasted the displeasure of the Filipino nation and its people overseas.
YouTube has numerous entries on the controversy, “Teri Hatcher Insults Filipinos” and “Teri Hatcher Leave Filipinos Alone!” a parody of the wildly popular “Leave Britney Alone” by Chris Crocker defending Britney Spears.
Kevin Nadal, 29, a Filipino-American college lecturer who lives in New York, posted an online petition calling ABC to task for the scene.
The petition has a total of 60,938 signatories as of Thursday noon.
“I was immediately offended and, really, just hurt,” Nadal said. “These days, people are supposed to be more sensitive or more aware of what’s considered appropriate.”
Nadal said he appreciated ABC’s apology, but said he also wanted to see the dialogue removed from future airings and DVDs.
ABC, owned by The Walt Disney Co., said Wednesday it was considering editing the episode.
Nadal also suggested that the show’s producers and ABC executives could make a more substantial gesture than an apology, through scholarships or donations for Filipino and Filipino Americans and community groups.
Meanwhile, some U.S.-based Fil-Am organizations refused to accept the apology of ABC.
The New York-based National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), a network of Filipino groups spanning 23 cities, said it will hold a picket today (Oct. 5), at 6 p.m., in front of ABC Studios on West 66th Street in Manhattan.
“The simplistic nature of ABC’s apology only insults our community even more,” says NAFCON executive vice president and spokesperson Rico Foz.
“It is not proportionate to the damage it has caused. It is basically just a one-paragraph response. We all deserve a decent, sincere and proper apology.”
Charissa Gilmore, ABC Studios vice president for media relations, indicated that ABC might release a lengthier statement.
The Washington, D.C.-based Migrant Heritage Commission, which promotes and protects the cultural identity and rights of Filipinos in the United States, demanded that ABC should issue a “broadcast public apology and not simply a one paragraph statement.”
The commission “demands for more concrete measures of accountability for the damage done not only to the reputation of the Filipino migrant health care professionals, specifically our doctors, but also to the Filipino nation as a whole for disparaging and maligning the Philippine educational system.”
Long Island cardiologist Dr. Orlando Apiado, who came to the U.S. in 1963, said he is mad and that “an apology is not enough.”
“They [ABC] should acknowledge the role of foreign medical graduates, particularly Filipino doctors from the early 1960s,” said Apiano, a product of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine Class of 1962. “For many decades as doctors, we have been serving America.”
“After 9/11, the most awarded healthcare providers were Filipinos from the Beekman Downtown Hospital near Wall Street,” said New York anesthesiologist Dr. Benjamin Ileto, a medical graduate of the Far Eastern University in Manila and who has been practicing in the United States since 1965.
