It’s just one "tulugan na lang" and all the hoopla and brouhaha will reach its culminating stage. For so many, it will not have ended soon enough, and we can finally get down to the business of "getting down to business," rather than doing so under the guise of "the circus has come to town." Election paraphernalia can finally be swept under the rug, into the gutters, brought to the dumps, and Metro Manila can once again be "regular dirty" as opposed to "super tacky dirty."
What has this current election campaign period taught us? Well, for one thing, now more than ever, the image is everything, and issues and substance can be relegated to the sidelines.
The lines between politics and show business have really been blurred. The wife of one congressman half-jokingly said that the only real qualifications one now needs for a successful run are how well one sings Mr. Suave, Ocho-Ocho and Bulaklak (at this level, even William Hung of American Idol is considered a "good" singer), and how well one can dance to those aforementioned songs. Nothing else seems to matter.
What do I mean? Well. Does anyone now know what FPJ stands for besides platitudes and folksy wisdom? Did anyone, other than political columnists and the opposing camps, really care at the end of the day? At one point, even they gave up, realizing the Sphinx was immutable and that his silence spoke more than a million words. Loved the photo in the newspaper the other week showing FPJ with some representatives from the US government and US Embassy. The caption stated that "Da King" had discussed with these Americans his platform and the programs he would bring about should he be elected. Buti pa sila! Maybe it is English that he’s really most comfortable with, as he managed to spout out in one afternoon what four months of constant local media coverage could not extract.
How else did image become the thing? While it’s a known fact that nothing brings out the crowds and votes like putting a showbiz spin on your election strategies, this was usually restricted to the raising of the candidate’s hand during rallies and endorsements via TV spots by so-and-so movie luminary. This year we finally had a campaign that in terms of the TV commercial I saw and posters was fully predicated on that showbiz personage. At one point, I truly wondered if writing Judy Ann Santos on the ballot still meant a vote for...
Speaking of our incumbent, for the TV spots of the latter stages of the campaign, did anyone notice how she suddenly went AWOL? It almost seemed like the ruling philosophy was "the less we saw of her and just remembered she is President and nothing like status quo would best serve our nation, the better." That might actually work, but isn’t that a poor reflection of what she’s actually accomplished while she held office? Yes, rhetorical question!
Eddie Gil. Come on, admit it, what would this election have been without Eddie Gil? He definitely deserves an award, or at the very least, a citation from Svensson or Kanekalon. And can someone please give him a new credit card? The very thing every self-professed billionaire apparently needs.
And that is what happened this election year. Every candidate became caricature or cipher for some aspect of his persona. Even Raul Roco, who took pains to make this an election of issues, was railroaded by his own image builders. People didn’t really want to hear those issues, but were mesmerized by the floral shirts he’d wear every single day of the campaign.
Brother Eddie and Ping? They can gripe about the accuracy of surveys and promise surprises come election day, but in the end, they (along with Roco) were summarily dismissed as "the marginalized" in the face of the two-cornered fight between PGMA and FPJ. And why oh why is everything reduced to initials? A portent of Ronnie and his being so taciturn? Who knows? Let’s just pray our country can still come out on top, regardless of who emerges as Top Dog before this country really goes to the dogs.