Pinoy Big Brother: PBB team: E-mail vs Big Bro peddling lies

The "Pinoy Big Brother" Season 2 management team denied the allegations in an e-mail supposedly written by an employee of ABS-CBN that is now being circulated in the media.

No less than Season 2's big bosses -- business unit head Laurenti Dyogi and Paolo Pineda, managing director of the ABS-CBN Interactive Inc. (ABSi) -- appeared during the show's primetime airing Wednesday.

The e-mail was supposedly written by an employee who was part of the news and current affairs division before doing conceptualization work for PBB.

“Unang-una iyung ginamit niyang term na 'Conceptualizer' siya hindi iyan ginagamit sa industriya specifically sa ABS-CBN (In the first place, the term 'conceptualizer ' is not used in the industry)," Dyogi said.

He added: "We either have brainstormers, writers, creative directors but not a conceptualizer. There is nothing to conceptualize [in] PBB because this is a franchise."

He said PBB, as a franchise, follows a concept and a production "bible."

Dyogi said the person who wrote the letter had used the news and current affairs to give the e-mail the "muscle" it needed.

He said the letter also mentioned “talent auditors.” Dyogi, a noted television director, said this was the first time that he heard of such a position in the company.

“Sa proseso ng pag-audition na kasama daw sila sa pagpili ng top 100. Para sa batch na ito, wala tayong pinili na 100. We went after the rigorous audition pumili na kaagad tayo ng top 30. Very exclusive ang kasama sa selection process (The e-mail writer said he or she was among those who chose the top 100. There was no top 100 for this batch because we immediately chose the top 30),” Dyogi explained.

He said the letter was obviously written by someone outside the PBB group because no one from the staff refers to Dyogi as “Direk Dyogi.”

For his part, Pineda said that votes sent through SMS (simple messaging system or 'text') are not manipulated.

“We don’t touch the votes. That’s all electronic. It’s exactly like sending an SMS. The minute you send out your votes, it goes electronically to our computers and then we store everything. And on the eviction night, that’s the time we open the votes,” Pineda said.

Pineda added that this is what ABS-CBN has been doing in all the seasons of Big Brother -- Season 1, Teen, Celebrity and for "Pinoy Dream Academy."

PBB voting explained
ABSi, a subsidiary of ABS-CBN in-charge of the PBB's online text voting, has taken a third party, which is SGV and Co., to validate the votes in the final voting process that started after the eviction of housemate Robert Woods III .

With regard to the continued stay of housemate Wendy Valdez inside the house, Pineda also had an explanation.

“When people are voting, their votes are being spread out. Supporters that are not for Wendy are going to either Mickey (Michael Richard Perz), going to Bea (Beatriz Saw), Gee-Ann (Gianina Maria Abrahan). So it’s more dispersed at this point,” Pineda said.

"[These are] not like the followers of Wendy who are just continuously voting for her," he added.

The issue about Wendy's continued stay flared up after PBB fans and viewers reacted Ronnel “Nel” Rapiz was evicted during the 10th Eviction Night instead of the beauty queen from Navotas.

PBB host Toni Gonzaga, meanwhile, said: “Marami talaga ang nagkaroon ng violent reaction noong 10th Eviction Night when Nel was evicted from the house because they really thought that Nel was a big contender for the Big Four.”

Dyogi appealed to PBB fans to disregard anonymous letters out to destroy the credibility of a person or a program without any basis to substantiate claims.

“Asahan ninyo po that we would keep the integrity of your votes at kung sino ho ang karapat-dapat na manalo (Trust us to keep the integrity of your votes and the one who you think should win,” he said.

"Nasa inyong mga kamay na ho iyon, sa inyong mga boto. Inaasahan ho namin na susuportahan ninyo ang sa tingin niyo ay big winner (The fate of the winner is in your hands. We expect you to support the housemate that you think should be the big winner)," he added.

Dyogi also reminded supporters of the remaining five PBB residents that their votes are there to the housemates.

“We don’t vote to evict. We vote to save,” he said.

abs-cbnNEWS.com is the online news department of ABSi.
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