Sins of omission
June 1st, 2004
For one hour every morning from Monday to Friday, the program “Morning Girls,” hosted by Korina Sanchez and Kris Aquino, dished out endless trivia, primarily on the love lives of the creatures who inhabit the black lagoon called Philippine entertainment. This was the same program in which Kris Aquino tearfully bared the secrets of her failed relationship with the comic—and former Paranaque Mayor—Joey Marquez, complete with such details as her contracting a sexually-transmitted disease.
Although viewing this program was as edifying as looking through a keyhole, the torment one has to undergo in watching it in the name of research may not be the same as the agony of being tortured in Abu Ghraib prison by racist, pornography-addicted riffraff. But it came very close to it last Friday, during its final episode.
Sanchez and Aquino had Manuel “Mar” Roxas for guest. Sanchez and Roxas are supposedly an item, as everyone should know by now thanks to the power of broadcasting. Now a Senator, Roxas came anyway, although he had not been invited to give his views on anything remotely related to law-making. The entire hour was instead devoted to Aquino’s questioning him and her co-host Sanchez on their relationship, about which Filipinos now know more than about the price of meat, fish and poultry.
Roxas has been proclaimed a Senator of the Republic by virtue of his getting the most number of votes for the Senate last May 10. It’s a feat he achieved not only through those expensive TV placements showing him dancing with fishwives, but also through the celebrity status his relationship with Sanchez endowed him with.
Indeed Roxas’ Friday appearance was logical enough, despite the inauspicious start it gave his senatorial career. The bottom line is that he owed Kris Aquino and Korina Sanchez that appearance because he might not have landed in first place among the senatorial candidates without the media exposure, well beyond the reach of paid political ads, that he received from his association with Sanchez and Aquino, who’re probably the most popular TV hosts in the country today.
Celebrity status, endorsement and/or association was one of the keys to the victory not only of Roxas, but also of that of at least four other Senators-elect: Maria Ana Consuelo “Jamby” Madrigal, Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr., Manuel “Lito” Lapid, and Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada.
Among these worthies, the most atrocious victory of all was a toss-up between that of Jinggoy Estrada and that of Madrigal. Estrada won for no other reason than his name and some P40 million of his father’s money—plus his celebrity- by- association status endowed by his father’s being pals with Fernando Poe Jr.
Although Madrigal had the gall to declare that she’s now a senator because she’s honest and sincere, she won because she had the truckloads of money that decide elections in this country. But critical to her victory was her endorsement by, and association with, actress Judy Ann Santos—whose face Madrigal made sure was plastered alongside hers in the giant billboards she erected all over the archipelago, and whose public appearances she also made it a point to attend.
Aside from the now dreary reality of having, in the Senate of Claro M. Recto, Jose P. Laurel, and Lorenzo M. Tanada, senators named “Bong,” “Jamby,” “Lito” and “Jinggoy,” the Filipino people can also look forward to these creatures’ silence much of the time, or worse, their expression of opinions only a crash course in public administration—assuming they’re educable because some people are not—could improve.
The celebrities and the celebrity-endorsed aren’t the only reasons why many people are seriously thinking of immigrating to a remote Pacific island. The country also has to fret over the return to the Senate of Miriam Defensor-Santiago and Juan Ponce Enrile, although for an altogether different reason.
Some commentators have attributed Santiago and Enrile’s political resurrection to the Filipinos’ supposedly short memory—i.,e., they’ve forgotten what happened during the Estrada impeachment trial which ran from December 2000 to January 16, 2001, and Enrile and Santiago’s role in it as two of the Estrada Eleven.
But some go further. The victory of celebrities and celebrity-endorsed candidates is itself an indication of how easily Filipinos forget, considering their relatively recent, uniformly bad experience with celebrities in government, including Joseph Estrada.
Wrong. It’s not that Filipinos forget, but that they remember. They remember such names as “Johnny” Enrile and “Miriam,” “Bong” and “Jinggoy,” “Lito,” and even “Jamby”. It’s not so much what the people who carry these tags did, or will do. At the moment of truth when the voter must write down his choices—assuming his memory is not being aided by a crisp P500 bill—the names that spring to mind, no matter what the reason, are the names that end up on the ballot.
But how do voters remember, in the first place? By reading, hearing, or seeing certain names often in the mass media through the news and/or through advertisements, in addition to seeing the candidates’ billboards, posters and whatever other form of political propaganda they use.
What it still amounts to is the rule of money, first of all. All other things being equal, the candidate with the most money and who’s prepared to spend it is likely to have the most TV, radio and print campaign ads and materials. This is in addition to having the capacity to hire poll watchers and thugs, and to buy votes. Because some 96 percent of Filipinos get their information from the media, this is a critical advantage. Old-time politicians such as Enrile and Santiago also have the added advantage of residual remembrance from their past media exposure.
That’s just the beginning, however. In a situation in which the line between entertainment, information and politics has been crossed so often it’s practically non-existent, celebrity endorsement and association, or celebrity status itself, have become critical. It’s what put Roxas in first place, and Madrigal in fourth, from 27th in January. And certainly, Kris Aquino’s endorsement of Pimentel couldn’t have hurt.
Under these conditions, the qualified but modestly-financed didn’t have a chance. Alyansa ng Pag-Asa’s Frank Chavez and Perfecto Yasay, for example, lost because they lacked the name recall those who could put up more billboards and buy more TV placements had. What’s more, they were not endorsed by, or associated with, celebrities. The salt on these wounds was that they weren’t reported on, either.
The solution to this anomaly could have come from those mostly responsible for it. The media, specially relevision—itself blamed for making popularity the most crucial factor in Philippine elections—could have offset the advantage of the moneyed and the celebrities and celebrity-endorsed if the news programs had focused more attention on lesser-known candidates.
Television news could have made the electorate aware that they had choices other than trapos, clowns and dumb-bells not only in the Senate race, but also in the local elections, where quite a number of celebrities also ran. As it was, the most popular TV news programs hardly covered the senatorial elections, much less the candidates in it with little exposure via media and other ads.
During the 90-day campaign period, the leading TV news programs were instead focused almost completely on the presidential contest to the detriment of the senatorial, local, party-list and even vice presidential campaigns.
The senatorial campaign made it to the news programs of the two biggest networks only when these reported the results of Social Weather Stations surveys that showed who were likely to win. The vice presidential candidates made it only in connection with scandals. The local (congressional, provincial and city) and party-list elections were not even so privileged.
Some of the public affairs programs did have lesser- known senatorial and vice presidential candidates as guests, and did have episodes on the local elections. But this was preaching to the converted. Only those already better informed than regular viewers of the six o’clock news tend to watch these programs, which in most cases are also aired beyond the prime-time hours. They thus provided further information to those already decided on voting for candidates for reasons other than their popularity.
As for the majority who rely on TV most for their information, watching the news hardly helped them make choices better than what the country has ended up with in the Senate—and, quite likely, in much of the local elections too.
(Today)