Singer-actor Juan Karlos “JK” Labajo should have scolded not only the parents of kids who encourage their children to join singing contests, so that they can help support the family in case they win. He should have also bluntly addressed adult children who have also been unwittingly shaming their parents every time they dramatically announce that they’re joining a TV contest to help support the family, in case they bring home the bacon. 

Labajo, soon after he was launched as a judge-mentor of the new ABS-CBN singing contest Idol Kids Philippines, wrote on his Facebook account: “Sobrang nakakalungkot para sa akin, kapag may isang eight-year-old na ‘Bakit ka sumali sa Idol Kids?’ ‘Para matulungan ang mga magulang ko (It’s so sad for me, when an eight-year-old — ‘Why did you join Idol Kids?’ ‘To help my parents).

“Why? Let the kids be kids. The kids deserve to be children. Bago kayo mag-anak, mag-ipon muna kayo (Before you have children, save first). Right? It’s just sad.”

Very young children are surely not aware that telling the world that they are joining a TV contest so they can help provide for the family in case they win is shameful for their parents. They can easily be forgiven. But not the grown-up children who make the same declarations on-camera when they join TV contests. They are subtly glorifying themselves even before the competition begins. They’re doing so at the disgrace of their poor parents.

Reacting to Labajo’s iconic rant, some netizens point out that such an admission ought to be considered “normal” in a country like the Philippines, where there’s an increasing number of families announcing in surveys their worsening poverty. 

There’s a Facebook page (Showbiz Philippines) that recently published almost a thousand reactions to Labajo’s rant. Those who favor the singer-actor’s stance are outnumbered by netizens who feel it is “normal” for impoverished parents to implore their children to find ways and means to eke out additional income for the family. 

“Child labor” is a stark reality in the country. Some movies and TV shows with “child labor” themes win awards, in case we have forgotten or were never aware of their existence. 

Many of us knew young college dropouts who found both employment and romance abroad. Aren’t Ethan and Joy of Hello, Love, Goodbye such characters? Their love story thrilled us, Pinoys, and practically ignored that they have been enslaving themselves in a foreign country for their kith and kin in the Philippines.

Some sensible netizens assert that it is immoral to consider as “normal” and “natural “for the people to bring forth children for whom they can’t buy, or even just rent, breathable dwellings and nutritious food to sustain them.

So, JK, you may want to do a part two of your rant and castigate the grown-up children who thoughtlessly shame their parents for their inadequacies. 

Does he have the “K” (“karapatan,” right in English) to nag parents and guardians who sweet-talk their talented children to join contests and possibly win so much cash and a house and lot for the family? 

He is a product of The Voice Kids in 2015, when ABS-CBN held the franchise for the foreign show from the Netherlands. When he joined it, he was being raised by maternal relatives because his mother had died years after his American-German father had abandoned them. His relatives were not well-off, but he seemed to have not been encouraged to join the singing contest to raise funds for his guardians. 

The Labajo kid easily became a favorite in the show because of his looks, singing prowess and impish sense of humor. Notes about him being an orphan raised by helpful maternal relatives began to go around when he was already being promoted as an ABS-CBN talent. He was never spoken of as a penurious, good-looking little mestizo boy with a rich musical skill.

Nora Aunor, the little girl singing champ of the pioneer TV contest Tawag ng Tanghalan, was fortunately not built up as coming from a poor Camarines Sur family and that she had to sell drinking water in plastic glasses at a train station to earn some cash for her siblings and meagerly employed parents. She couldn’t be presented as a poor little girl only because she was thought to be a soldier’s daughter stationed at the then-Nichols Air Base in Taguig. That soldier was her uncle, the husband of her mother’s sister, Belen Aunor.