EDITORIAL - Newsworthiness of sadness

Television host Kris Aquino and movie actress Ruffa Gutierrez were in the news again last week. No, not because of some new personal scandal, but because they managed to beat the Comelec deadline for registration of voters.

What? So what? What was the significance of Kris Aquino and Ruffa Gutierrez beating the deadline for registration of voters? Would our lives be enriched and made more meaningful by the inclusion in the news of the fact that they managed to make the list-up in the nick of time?

On the contrary they should have been publicly pilloried for setting a very bad example of registering only at the last minute. Shorn of their wealth and prominence, they were no better than those who endured the heat and long lines because they did not register a year earlier.

But of course there was a big difference. Unlike the other hapless and ordinary citizens who ignored the start of registration on December 2 last year and waited until the last 48 hours, Kris and Ruffa never got to endure any heat and long line.

They were breezed through by the powers that be, including one who will be mayor of the city they registered in. In gratitude, the always tactless Kris told the nation on television that this candidate will certainly have her vote. Talk of unfair influence and early campaigning.

But then Kris and Ruffa made the news, despite the absolute non-newsworthiness of their successful late registration, precisely to milk out of her presence every drop of free publicity for her and her backers’ political position. Ruffa was just the salt in the broth.

Another television host, Korina Sanchez, at least had the delicadeza to go on leave on account of Mar Roxas, her new husband, being in the running for a political position. To be on tv is to wield immense influencing power that can be used to promote someone, subtly or directly.

Yet Kris has chosen to stay on, often wearing the yellow color associated with her brother Noynoy’s candidacy. Asked earlier about the possibility of going on leave, she declined, saying she is not married to her brother. Wonder where she got her genes?