Comedians and Candidates

What’s happening to us? Comedians are candidates. Candidates are comedians.

In the past weeks, a couple of local candidates have catapulted themselves to national exposure with their brand of sense of humor. It’s not an urban or rural thing. One is running as a Pasig congressman. The other is running for governor in one of the Misamis provinces. Both remarks are insensitively sexist directed specifically towards women, exposing perception of them As sex objects. The offensive remarks are ironically directed towards marginalized sectors, solo parents and college scholarship grantees. The first group is given social welfare in acknowledgement of the financial and emotional challenges of rearing children without the partnership of husbands, and the second group with the presumed financial lack which causes them to apply for financial assistance for school fees. Sectors which are supposed to be given assistance are taken advantage of by candidates (one of whom has already been in office). It’s simply ironic that they should be helped, yet they’re being harassed.

They call these remarks, “jokes”. The remarks are intended to cause amusement or laughter. Should we be amused at the thought of a congressman giving once-a-year one-night-stands to solo parents who need affection? Should we be amused at the disqualification of less attractive female scholarship applicants because they would impede patients’ recovery and inversely, attractive nurses are implied to provide some sort of escort service? Should these be amusing? Should these amuse us.

In fact, honestly, they are amusing. I personally get the humor. Come on, I don’t think I would be the only one. But, these are the sort of raunchy humor that we should find in late night comedy shows so that children audience would not hear them (back when free TV was the most popular and exclusive means of entertainment). Now, it would be very difficult to keep this type of humor from children who could access them on their devices at any time of the day without supervision.

Lest we forget, a local congressman who is running for reelection has a video in which on a campaign, he implies of a sex act on his constituents on the audience.

Yeah, I know. A public speaker has to inject some humor in his/her oratorical piece to make it interesting for the audience. But, the primary content of campaign speeches should be the presentation of platform of government (or at least, it should be). Short intermissions of humor would be efficient and to some extent, are necessary (to keep the audience from sleeping), but in the aforementioned cases, the inappropriate humor were not intermissions. They were lengthy discussion and exploration of irrelevant issues such as the sexual needs of solo parents and the physical attractiveness of female scholarship applicants, something that is expected behavior from a stand-up comedian.

On the flipside, comedian and TV host Willie Revillame is at it again on a bid for the Senate. Has not he taunted that position in the past elections already? Well, apparently this time, he’s more serious about being a senator. I liked him better when he was less successful; not that I resent his overwhelming success. I just think that he was funnier then. I remember this scene in the movie based on the life story of Eddie “Lagalag” Fernandez, in which his character suddenly bursts into hysterical crying once their gang gets put behind bars. That cracked me up. That was perfect comic relief for a an otherwise somber scene. He played the role of Berting Labra in that movie. Back then, he would play the annoying sidekick to Randy Santiago and action stars like Philip Salvador and Rudy Fernandez. Don’t get me wrong. I mean he was entertaining in his being annoying. That all got lost when he blew up bit-time. I wonder what his legislative agenda is.

I feel bad for Luis Manzano. He’s at the top of his game nowadays. He has a lot of endorsements. He has an enjoyable game show. His TV show always clicks with the audience. He’s always fun to watch. He always has an unexpectedly funny spiel here and there. Now, he gets dragged to running for vice governor of Batangas. Somehow, I get the feeling that he’s not all-out into running for public office. His candidacy is laced with the bad taste of political dynasty with his mother, vilma Santos being his running mate, and his politically juvenile half-brother, Ryan Christian Recto running for congressman. If this isn’t a political dynasty, then what is it? A family picnic? I think Luis Manzano would do quite well in presiding over Sanggunian Panlalawigan sessions, but I think he would do better in hosting Rainbow Rumble.

So, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen. Here’s another case of how Philippine politics turns the world upside down. Candidates want to be comedians and comedians want to be candidates.

Ecclesiastes 10:6: “Fools are put in many high positions, while the rich occupy the low ones.”