By now, you’ve probably heard of an issue: somebody was labeled as “walang kwenta,” and they may or may not have deserved that label. But we’re not talking about Patrick Garcia right now, so let’s move on to a more recent iteration of this issue.

It’s the one that involves a moderately well-known podcast that has been around since 2014, and was abruptly pulled off the air just last October 15 in light of insensitive comments made by one of the hosts regarding the son of one of the biggest celebrities in the country.

Some more generous people have labeled this mishap as a “learning experience” for the people involved in the podcast. But maybe we can turn it into a real one for the rest of us who want to understand how people can spend 12 years just under the radar only to blow up for all the wrong reasons – and the other people who put their foot in their mouth only to have that moment uploaded for the entire internet to scourge them from pillar to post, too.

Let’s talk about things like…

8. The illusion of a private conversation

Something about being in a room with people who are presumably your friends makes people in the middle of a podcast forget that this isn’t a private conversation that begins and ends with your barkada: it’s something that’s going to be uploaded to your (also presumably) hundreds of followers. It might feel like their safe space in their very own world, but those cameras, mics, that Spotify upload all say it’s not staying there.

We really don’t have the time or energy to litigate the merits of saying these things in the locker room, or holding a wildly controversial take that we keep only to ourselves. Since we’re not the thought police here either, it’s the impact of these takes we should be measuring instead. And the impact in this case has clearly been massive.

7. We forget we’re already punching down

Yes, it’s terrible to realize that you just insulted someone who happens to be the son of one of the biggest celebrities in the country who is also part of one of the most prominent political families in our history… who also counts the current First Lady as his aunt. But the more immediate problem is that you picked on someone for something that had absolutely nothing to do with anything he had done to you, or to anyone else, for the crime of merely existing and not being to your tastes.

It’s so easy to poke fun at powerful people. And it’s so easy to poke fun at things they actually did, instead of things they can’t help but be. This is why we talk about someone being a merchant of misinformation, instead of slut-shaming them over their previous source of notoriety. That’s how we’re supposed to throw some mocha-shaded shade.

Because when your punchline depends on someone’s disability, or on how they navigate a world that wasn’t exactly built with them in mind, who exactly are you expecting to laugh? And what, precisely, did they do to deserve being the butt of your joke?

6. Peer pressure is a hell of a drug

This is why we remind people to call things out when they know things are wrong. People who personally know the people inside that room probably know them to be decent and principled people. They’d want to say that this 30-second excerpt does not capture the entirety of who they are and what they stand for.

Yet in laughing along and not offering any pushback, doesn’t that tell you that maybe those so-called principles aren’t as well-upheld as they ought to be? It’s not a matter of convenience: you stand for these things you supposedly believe in, even when everyone around you is apparently laughing at them.

5. No filter does not mean pure honesty, much less the truth

It was Benoit Blanc in Glass Onion who said that “It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth,” and that’s really what happened here. 

Of course free speech exists. But so do the consequences for said free speech, such as other people who disagree also exercising their free speech, and people withdrawing support for the podcast. We could debate government overreach once lawsuits get involved, but for now, the consequences have purely been a self-correction by the marketplace of ideas. And all because somebody thought that just because you can say anything meant you had to say that.

4. You can and will be taken out of context (as if context even matters)

When people claim that a short video clip was taken out of context and that listening to the entire thing would prove them innocent, nine times out of ten, the so-called context doesn’t actually matter.

You said what you said. People will clip it. Now what? Even Shane Gillis had to deal with being fired from SNL back in 2019, and yes, all because of his old podcasts from years before he even got the gig initially.

Of course, there’s a difference between being taken out of context and having your words accurately quoted in a context you didn’t anticipate. But that’s the thing about putting something out into the world: you don’t get to dictate how everyone else receives it. You don’t even need to be read your Miranda Rights to know that your own words can come back to haunt you.

And, oh. Crying victim after all of that? Never a good look. At all.

3. The failure didn’t begin and end in the recording studio

As a recorded show, there were editors and producers who heard that podcast, or skimmed over it more likely, and decided “yes, this is okay to share with the world.”

There were plenty of steps left and right that could have prevented maybe a minute or two of dialogue from ever seeing the light of day, sidestepping this controversy altogether. Instead, it went through. And now, heads are rolling over it.

2. You can apologize sincerely, or you can keep making things worse

We’ve seen countless wordings for apologies, actual non-apologies, and straight up doubling down. Just look at the whole brouhaha involving Kelly Clarkson and that damned bird to know how quickly the conversation can stop being about the original incident and start being about how the people involved choose to handle the backlash.

Because here’s the thing: an apology isn’t a magical reset button. Most people’s first experience of you when you blow up like this is the controversy, and only the controversy. It takes more than a clumsily worded statement to paper that over. It takes consistent reparatory action, and sometimes, the good sense to stop talking long enough for that action to speak for itself.

And that’s where you can really lose the room. You can have people who are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, people who think the criticism has gone too far, even people who agree with your side of the argument. But if you keep doubling down, you give them less and less reason to defend you. The people who were willing to move on are now being asked to defend your latest statement, too.

Alternatively, we also know that nobody ever really gets canceled in the Philippines if you’re big enough. It may seem that these guys unfortunately did not meet that benchmark.

1. You could have actually been funny

Since this is a guide that clearly involves a self-proclaimed comedy podcast, let’s zero in on half of that phrase: comedy. Something funny. Something we can laugh at. And trust us: we know that there is room to be funny even with the most taboo of topics. Just ask Anthony Jesselnik. He’d tell you.

What Anthony would also tell you is that if you didn’t make people laugh, then you didn’t get away with it. And there really is no actual punchline in calling someone “walang kwenta” when not only is that evaluation not self-apparent here, you’re also essentially saying that people like him are also “walang kwenta,” because that statement was clearly painting with the broadest of brushes.

So does that mean we can’t joke about anything anymore? Of course not! But maybe a better editor, a better joke writer who writes actual jokes instead, or a basic understanding of when your own impulse control needs a little help (and the good sense to build in safeguards accordingly) might have turned a disaster into something actually worth laughing about.

Because if you know that sometimes your mouth gets ahead of your brain, that’s not necessarily the end of the conversation. But it does mean you might want to think twice before opening your mouth in front of a microphone for the world to hear.

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