Showbiz is a glamorous career that invites even toddlers to sing, dance, and emote at the drop of a hat.

Showbiz is growing – the wide silver screen, the smaller TV screen, indies, short features, docus, DVDs legal and illegal, YouTube, “Hayden cameras,” etc.

Ironically, the faster it grows, the sooner the bell tolls for the Filipino film industry. Its impending death has been reported for the last 10 years or so, ironically when the President of the Republic happened to be a movie star.

Ric Camaligan, president of the National Cinema Association of the Philippines and vp of SM’s leisure properties, told “Bulong Pulungan” at Sofitel last Tuesday: “We are losing money.” He was referring not only to the SM malls’ 200 screens nationwide, but also to other theater owners as well as film distributors.

By his account, it’s a sure money loser on senior citizens’ day in SM Manila (near City Hall), when the white-haired audience take every seat and leave not a single one for theater management to sell to nonseniors. And in Cagayan de Oro, because the competition sells seats at R35, SM had to peg their admission at R45, probably the cheapest in the kingdom of SMs.

In the battle to overcome piracy, digital projectors that cost 18 times more than the standard equipment are not the answer. What is? The consumer’s code of honor? As a friend quipped, “Why should the Third World feel guilty about taking from the First World?”

Until updated technology can defeat the cheap technology that allows pirates to rule the roost – a R5.5 billion industry – moviemakers and distributors can only wage war one battle at a time. For starters, NCAP director general Ed Sazon reported, a bill has been passed into law -- after three hard, painful years -- reducing the 30 percent amusement tax to 10 percent. In addition, culture vultures will be glad to know that “operas, concerts, dramas, recitals, painting and art exhibitions, flower shows, musical programs, literary and oratorical presentations” are exempted from the tax, but not “pop, rock or similar concerts.”(Yeah, they should be charged a noise pollution tax instead.)