“TVJ is ‘Eat Bulaga’ and ‘Eat Bulaga’ is TVJ. TAPE and GMA needs to be stopped from violating our copyrighted works and from deceiving and misleading the public.”
This was the statement of former Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, one-third of the iconic trio TVJ with Marivic “Vic” Sotto and Joey “Henyo” de Leon, when he testified last Friday at the sala of Marikina regional trial court (RTC) Judge Romeo Dizon Tagra of Branch 273.
Sotto told the court that the TVJ did not file for ownership or trademark for the “Eat Bulaga” name because they trusted TAPE for a long time and did not expect it to betray them as he highlighted their over four decades of working partnership.
He said that under their agreement, TAPE financed the production and operation of the show while the TVJ handle the segments and other creative concepts.
Sotto said this was the status quo during their more than 40 years of partnership until TAPE chairman and co-founder Romeo Jalosjos Sr. declared that the show was suffering losses and the only way to recover was by reinventing and rebranding Eat Bulaga by introducing new segments and new hosts.
Sotto said the current hosts of the show objected to the proposal, pointing out that having new hosts would mean the old ones would either get a pay cut or would be let go entirely.
The former senator also said he, his brother Vic and De Leon were supposedly promised they would be made stockholders or co-owners of TAPE. This, however, he admitted did not happen.
After their resignation from “Eat Bulaga,” Sotto said the show’s staff also left GMA-7 on May 31 and transferred to TV-5.
Sotto said GMA-7 was included as respondent in their complaint because it allowed TAPE to replay “Eat Bulaga” episodes despite the original hosts’ resignation.
“TAPE and GMA committed acts of unfair competition. TAPE replayed and aired, without our consent, the recorded audiovisual works where we, TVJ, are still hosting the show. Further, TAPE continues to air new episodes of the show this time with new hosts,” Sotto said.
The next hearing will be on August 25 with Jenny Ferre, former head of the production and creative operations of “Eat Bulaga,” expected to take the witness stand.
