We also learned that some people from the TV industry use the column to take an inside peek at the organization that the networks themselves own and operate. To further broaden the reach, the column will also be henceforth launched in the anaktvweb.com as well as shared with the Anak TV e-group that will shortly begin their monitoring assignments.

Because it is the first for the year, it is opportune to honor Christine Bersola, now Babao, the woman who landed in the first slot among people’s choices for the most wholesome and family-friendly during last year’s Anak TV national derby.

While Anak TV was created expressly to screen TV program offerings, it was inevitable to ask the multisectoral jury their opinions about television as a whole, a question that invariably ends up in a discourse about the lords and denizens of broadcasting. Being what it is, Philippine television is a personality industry. It is difficult to dissociate celebrities from any discussion or analysis of local TV. To the common TV user, it is as if the TV ballgame begins and ends with the person they see on the tube.

TinTin’s emergence at the top during the national survey is both source of joy and astonishment.

In 2004, she was merely among the runners-up to top winner Mel Tiangco. From being a part of the entourage, as it were, in only a year, news anchor Julius Babao’s comely first lady overtook the durable Tiangco and even bypassed Sharon Cuneta, a major star. After the final tallies were concluded, it was such a delight to learn that TinTin, who is known to agitate for responsible motherhood and proper baby care, had shaved off points from giants like Tiangco and Cuneta.

That TinTin was adjudged from north to south as the local female TV personality who most embodied, at least for the thousands of viewers surveyed, wholesomeness and respectability onscreen was a wonderful feat because the girl enjoys only a few minutes of exposure every morning on the cluttered Magandang Umaga Bayan. It was likely her Paren-tin segment (and to a certain extent, her endorsement of a diaper brand) that made her a shoo-in for the top spot.

TinTin’s victory now questions the standard formulae for winning: Luster, name recall, star power, exposure frequency and ratings. Compared to Tiangco and Cuneta, TinTin was concededly second, even third fiddle, if the time-tested equation were to be employed. An officer of a government TV station analyzed it succinctly.

"Popularity and massive exposure can buy votes in a political election," he says. "The voter uses cleverness and pocket. He has given up on the establishment because it is always the same banana with a different name. But when respectability and family-modeling are at stake, the voter uses heart and mind. He will not compromise that."

It was therefore a well-deserved triumph, not only for TinTin, but for the many other celebrities who feel that opportunities are passing them by because it is commonly thought that the industry, and the TV viewer, is fickle.

TinTin’s winning proved that we also have a growing intelligent mass of TV users.