Where’s Aksyon?

There was a time when we would hear “higit sa balita, aksyon” at the end of every newscast on TV5. But, why is it still missing in action until today?

On March 16, 2020, Aksyon and its spin-off Aksyon sa Tanghali both aired their final episodes before going onto hiatus the following day. This was a response by News5 to the implementation of Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) a day earlier. As a provisionary measure, One News supplied TV5, One PH, and Radyo5 news updates that were delivered in both English and Filipino. For more than a month, special editions of One News Now aired throughout the day, all-week-long.

But on May 7, 2020, One PH brought back One Balita Pilipinas with Cheryl Cosim and Ed Lingao. In a (not-so) surprising move, it replaced the early primetime edition of One News Now that usually airs at around 6:30pm, the timeslot vacated by Aksyon. Interestingly, OBP was carried on the main channel from September 23, 2019 until February 28, 2020 as a de-facto late-night newscast; only to be removed as TV5 reprogrammed its primetime block once again.

On June 1, 2020, alongside the implementation of a general community quarantine, the noontime edition of One Balita returned on air and relaunched as One Balita Pilipinas with Raffy Tulfo. However, instead of broadcasting at 12:00nn, its pre-lockdown timeslot, the show was aired at 12:30pm, Aksyon sa Tanghali’s hour.

With both editions of One Balita Pilipinas airing on the supposed times allocated for Aksyon and its spin-off, is the 10-year-old newscast officially axed?

If the broadcast time of the two OBP editions is of any indication, then it might as well be considered brain dead. Because by this time, only News5’s Twitter account is still explicitly carrying the Aksyon brand. Beyond that, only old episodes and clips of the newscast are the remaining artifacts.

Here’s a suggestion, though. TV5 can at least bring back the program one last time to give it a chance to say goodbye to their loyal viewers. Not doing such would be a huge insult to a product that stood the test of time, a decade to be exact.