Dear Editor,

K-dramas or Asianovelas are cute and fun to watch as I have observed in the past (occasionally) when my daughter and mother-in-law were watching some of them.

These foreign soap operas are a challenge to our local producers. Their plots are not overdramatized, unlike our own telenovelas which are usually filled with extremes of all sorts, catering to the baser instincts of man, e.g. betrayal, hatred, bitterness, deceit, vileness, wickedness, immorality, revenge, murder, criminality, brutality, barbarism, and the likes.

Our local TV stations seem dictated by viewership surveys and ROI (return on investment), overlooking their responsibility to the nation for the impacts their programs spawn on people. TV and movie productions seem to have become pure business. Hence, talents are treated like cold commodities that producers can dump at whim if they don't sell anymore.

Let drama series be hygienic to the soul while they try to titillate and captivate viewers. And let them benefit the nation. Dramas don't have to be dramatic (unnecessarily), much less gruesomely violent, to be entertaining and win hearts.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada has a point in bringing up the idea/need of banning K-drama and Asianovela. They indeed render countless Filipino artists jobless. We are not lacking in able and superb actors, directors, scriptwriters, storytellers, and cinematographers, yet we do a great disservice to them and to our entertainment industry – by importing foreign "dramas. "Don t belittle your own. What we need is patriotism.

Talk about Filipinos defeating Filipinos and we have it right here in our land. Pathetic, lahat na lang iniimport natin (We import everything). Progress comes easy from being original.

Reni M. Valenzuela
renivalenzuelaletters@yahoo.com