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RP consul protests prank call by DJ
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Posted on Feb 11 1999
Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio said yesterday he was disgusted over reports of a “funky call” made to the Philippine Consulate by a local radio station because of its potential harm in the relations between the Northern Marianas and the Philippines.
“It is very unethical for them not to inform the person being interviewed that (the conversation) is on air,” an irate Tenorio said in an interview. “It is not right.”
The other day, Consul Julia Heidemann protested to the radio station’s manager, Curtis Dancoe, what she described as mockery of Philippine government policies and its representatives in the commonwealth.
“The prank call was obviously done in poor taste, disrespectful, arrogant and blatantly offensive to the Philippine government at large and the Filipino community in the CNMI,” Heidemann said in a letter.
A certain Monty phoned the consulate to inquire how to become a Filipino citizen and whether fondness for lumpia, Manila’s version of spring rolls, and pansit, fried noodles popular among Filipinos, would make him eligible to become a citizen of the Philippines.
But Vice Consul Ronell Santos, who was on the other end, took the questions seriously only to be told that it was a “funky call.” It was later found out that the entire conversation was being aired on the radio without the knowledge of the Philippine official.
The Filipino community raised howl over what they called arrogance and high-handedness of the radio station’s DJ, whom they said was a poor copy cat of Howard Stern, a controversial radio personality in the United States known for his vulgar and racist comments.
“I think it’s very unfair for the vice consul to be put on the spot. It is very important that they (the radio station) know when and who to make calls like that,” Tenorio said.
This is not the first time that “Monty” stirred a brouhaha. Before the incident with the Philippine Consulate, he sent the emergency room into panic after he called doctors that he needed urgent help after he accidentally sat on his son’s pager.
