Some Filipinos called senior news correspondent Bam Alegre as their “spirit animal” after a video of him unintentionally walking out of the camera’s view while reporting live went viral.
The GMA News reporter was doing a spot coverage of the COVID-19 vaccination program in the city of San Juan on March 5.
Reports said that Alegre was in Cardinal Santos Medical Center to cover the vaccination proceedings.
Meanwhile, newscaster Arnold Clavio was in the network’s studio to announce the news correspondent’s report at that time.
But the signals did not cooperate and Alegre stalled in his report, presumably to wait for Clavio’s cue.
Alegre then went on to deliver his report without acknowledging the newscaster.
When Clavio asked a follow-up question about San Juan City Mayor Francis Zamora, Alegre shortly turned his back and walked away from the camera.
The camera then switched to Susan Enriquez who was assigned to introduce the next report, but she was caught on television laughing instead.
When she started to deliver her spiels, Clavio can be heard asking in the background, “Ano kayang nangyari doon?”
Some viewers were able to record the happenings and shared it on social media, where it immediately went viral on both Facebook and Twitter.
Others who have seen the clip quipped of being able to relate to Alegre walking out at some point in their lives.
“Me when it’s 5 p.m .and they still want me to do some work,” a Facebook user commented with a series of laughing-with-tears emojis.
“Hahahahahahaha hoy. I am Bam Alegre every day,” a Twitter user commented with the similar set of emojis.
“Bam Alegre is my spirit animal hahhahhaha,” another online user wrote.
Spirit animal is a slang used to refer to someone or something as a representation of who you want to be.
Journalist Anjo Bagaoisan, who works for rival network ABS-CBN, recently shared details on the behind-the-scenes of live reporting in a Twitter thread.
“TV reporters going live have 3 means to track if they’re on/off air: Floor monitor/screen, earpiece, on-site coordinator (producer/tech crew). Sometimes you had them all, sometimes just one. But losing them can spell disaster for the report,” he tweeted on March 7, two days after Alegre’s coverage.