McCann-Erickson Philippines threatens an ad pullout in the face of increasingly distasteful content on Eat Bulaga and Magandang Tanghali Bayan.

I applaud the move. Watching Filipino noontime programming has always been, for me, a grating exercise in dismayed abhorrence. Shallow, primitive, even predatory humor is inflicted on hapless contestants debasing themselves for a few pesos, while rows of women decked out like strip dancers prance about poorly constructed cardboard sets. It is a freakish, farcical carnival of debasement and debauchery, and the thronging masses, knowing no better, lap it up and ask for more.

Hopefully this move by McCann will help boot them — the TV stations and the viewing public — out of that pandering swamp. Would that someone could do the same for Filipino movies. Or MTV’s Jackass.