New York Times’ Turning Points features AlDub as game changer

by Leony R. Garcia

  For setting new trends in Philippine television, phenomenal loveteam AlDub was chosen to be part of the 2016 Philippine edition of Turning Points, the New York Times’ annual year ahead magazine, now available from the publisher of BusinessMirror, the country’s

No.1 business newspaper.
This is aside from the fact that both Alden and Maine have become the country’s most famous showbiz and advertising personalities with the duo’s coming out in Tamang Panahon in October 2015 garnering 41 million tweets and with Maine Mendoza as the third most search name/personality in Google.

The New York Times has chosen the BusinessMirror for an exclusive partnership in the Philippines. Published in over 40 countries, Turning Points magazine features exclusive content from globally recognized voices including Nobel laureates, diplomats, politicians, social activists, writers, artists and
fashion designers who share their unique perspectives.

For the maiden Philippine issue of Turning Points, the BusinessMirror published global and local opinion pieces by political, cultural and economic thinkers who look at trends and new ideas in the Philippines and from around the world to identify key turning points and explain how they may influence the year ahead.

But where lies the magic of this (AlDub) phenomenon? “For all the radical twists and tweaks of the story, as it unfolds from noontime, the story of a genial young man and a lovely girl with propensity to cross her eyes, there is tradition, family orientation, and that good old thing called societal values,” writes Tito Genove Valiente, a public anthropologist and film critic, in his article aptly titled “The AlDub Nation: Creating Cultures and Market.”
Valiente is part of the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino, the oldest and premier film critics’ group in the country which he headed as chairman in the past. He maintains two columns for the BusinessMirror.

“The series (kalyeserye) is a natural candidate for a contemporary theater of the absurd. Anything that takes place in the most public of Philippine places – the street – requires utmost sincerity. Nothing can be hidden from the person on the streets; no one is more difficult to persuade than the people who face hunger on the street,” the author said.

“The resounding success of Eat Bulaga has created a new platform for advertisement and advocacy. Alden and Maine are two of the most popular endorsers, with the presence sometimes of Wally, the fabulous mad-woman of the street, of global fast food, telcos and soft drinks, as old as any variety programs,” Valiente added.

Turning Points is another trailblazing endeavor of the BusinessMirror

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