By Rocío González
Voxxi

The power of social media is unquestionable, at least for Puerto Rico’s WAPA TV station and the creator of La Comay, host of the top-rated TV show on the island, SuperXclusivo, who is about to hand in his resignation amid intense protests on social media sites.

Puerto Rican Newspaper El Nuevo Dia reported today that Antulio “Kobbo” Santarrosa, who portrays gossip maven—and puppet—La Comay in a daily show, will quit after protests led advertisers to pull out, which in turn led the station to make some changes. The main change: the show, instead of being broadcast live as it has been for many years, must be taped a few hours before airing, to allow the station to review it before broadcasting it.

“I have been working for more than seven years to get La Comay off the air,” said Pedro Julio Serrano, a Puerto Rican activist.

La Comay opposers took to social media to get the puppet off the air

As Serrano told VOXXI, the Facebook group “Boicot a La Comay” took off after a Facebook status he posted when La Comay made some controversial—and homophobic—statements about the murder of Jose Enrique Gomez, a publicist. La Comay said that Gomez’s death was allegedly related to a        sexually-promiscuous lifestyle, based on rumors that he was at a red-light district of the city of Caguas, Puerto Rico.

“I’m conscious about the power social media has,” Serrano said. “I live in New York, but the vast amount of my work takes place in Puerto Rico, and I have seen the effect the web has on the way we do things now. So I wasn’t surprised [to see how the boycott took off], but I didn’t expect it to be so successful.”

There are conflicting reports as to whether Santarrosa has quit already. Last night’s SuperXclusivo was a rerun of Monday’s episode, and El Nuevo Dia’s Patricia Vargas wrote that Santarrosa left before yesterday’s show because he didn’t agree with the new restrictions WAPA TV was imposing, which the station is unwilling to lift, because it has lost too much money already.

The station made a counteroffer and has asked him to reconsider, Vargas wrote. Santarrosa’s contract was up on Dec. 31.

Serrano is cautious to claim victory against Santarrosa.

“I can’t make a comment about that, it’s not final, but I can tell you that this boycott will continue until it is confirmed that this program is off the air,” Serrano told VOXXI. “This sends a message to other media that they have to make sure that their programming and their content don’t violate the individual and collective virginity of our nation. That is one of the biggest lessons of this movement.”