Ben Lim
for abscbnNEWS
FPJ and de Castro are not new faces to the nation, but they are now the new faces of Philippine politics. Although President Estrada named FPJ as his likely successor during the second year of his presidency, FPJ never took the anointment seriously. FPJ and de Castro look at their celebrity status in politics as fairy tales. Something that they did not expect to come their way. But they are now the talk of the masses and the mass media. The storytellers are not public relations people, advertising moguls, fat cats of Philippine politics or publicists unleashed by the rich and the elite, but the common people.
If there were no real life FPJ or Noli de Castro, people would have invented them. In some ways the two were invented -- FPJ by the roles he played in movies and Noli de Castro by his role as TV’s top newscaster.
Intellectuals, especially from the academia and the upper middle class, tend to distrust choices from the bottom. And it has become fashionable to say that these people, though qualified to run as president under the rules of the Constitution, do not have the experience and the expertise to execute the constitutional mandates. “Look at Estrada,” they sneered, “he can’t even tell what is legal from what is illegal. And where is he now?”Many claim that without mass media, particularly film and TV, popular personages like FPJ and de Castro would not even have existed as significant figures, above all, as political figures. It was media exposure that made them popular. The media today have become a “theatrocracy” that breeds its own elite. The implication is that the emergence of FPJ and de Castro are more media phenomena than the rise of a collective consciousness of the common man in search of political saviors. Film and television elect presidents.
This is at best half-truth. Surely without media exposure FPJ and de Castro would not be considered as presidential timbers. People weave fantasies about their capabilities and dedication based on what they saw and heard. Moreover, they have little or no practical source of information necessary for political realism. Yet if media exposure were the measure of their popularity and attraction to the common people, of the hundreds of TV and movie personalities, why are only FPJ and de Castro singled out by the masses?
By the same token, President Gloria Arroyo should enjoy the same if not greater measure popularity, adulation and acceptance. Compared to FPJ and de Castro she has more TV, print and physical exposure than FPJ and de Castro combined. And if qualification were the measure of success, GMA should have it all. And yet GMA does not seem to reap the fruits and rewards that are supposedly to be inherent in media exposure. Theoretically good media coverage, particularly TV coverage, can shift political advantage toward those office holders with access to the medium. Nobody can contest the fact that GMA has enjoyed unique national exposure on national television.
GMA made herself available to reporters often, both in impromptu and in formal sessions. She seemed to be emulating Marcos in being the sole political actor in media. And to make sure that the viewers, listeners and readers will not be bored by her daily appearance, she began sounding off on a different theme every week: first, anti-poverty campaign, then anti-drugs, anti-kidnapping, anti-terrorism, on the spot checks on police stations, anti-SARS, anti-graft and corruption, field trips to Mindanao.
No other political leader has gotten more free rides from the Philippine media than GMA. Next to Marcos, only the GMA administration has made news management to as central a role in the theory and practice of governance. For the Malacañang publicists it was not enough to present the government’s version of reality to the public, they must also neutralize the negative publicity from the media. Indeed they have demonstrated an amazing capacity to twist facts to suit their convenience. The media, in their view, has to be reliable and essentially non-intrusive of what Malacañang wanted the public to know. GMA’s cadre of spin-doctors and public relations advisers did a masterful job of catering to TV’s appetite for sparkling visuals and snappy sound bites, and of course GMA herself was the iron-lady of a strong Republic playing the role of the Commander-in-Chief. Unfortunately despite her dominant media exposure especially on TV and notwithstanding the systematic attempts by her publicists to manipulate the media by limiting the journalists’ ability to report politically damaging stories, GMA still failed to win over the electorate. Her approval and trust ratings over the past two and half years have been miserably low. The heights of euphoria during EDSAs I and II are frequently matched by the depths of a sense of loss now. EDSAs I and II warriors who felt that they were coming of age, could not speak about such feelings of loss, as they continue to insist that they made the right decisions.
Popular resentment, contrary to the claim of Estrada loyalists, was not on GMA’s handling of Estrada, but against politicians such as the President, her relatives, her allies, and her cabinet, senators and congressmen who are identified simply as grafters, thieves, and non-performers.
What those people who equated media exposure to popularity have overlooked is that media, particularly TV, is a double-edged sword and a two-way medium. For those silent millions, seeing is either believing or disbelieving. The presentation of the self, which could boast authentically, is only part of the story. The other part is how the viewer appraises the image and message of the person based on his knowledge of other data. No doubt the TV presentation is a useful addition to other evidences, including previous messages and appearances on TV. TV viewers analyzed and compared GMA’s TV messages to her actual performance. As far as they are concerned these are campaign sorties and not serious attempts to address national problems.
GMA’s scattershot approach, moving quickly from one issue to another, has little impact. No doubt spreading herself out thinly got GMA plenty of coverage more than any other political leader in the country. During the impeachment trial of President Estrada, GMA said the economy was suffering not simply due to the Asian financial crisis, but due to a long-term illness, which required an expert like her to fix. But since she took over, economic growth was flat, thousands of foreign investors left the country, tens of thousands of Filipinos lost their jobs, wages stagnated, deficit spending is at record high, the lower middle class and the poor have become poorer. As far as our people are concerned, the so-called economic report of GMA is a statistical abstraction. There was indignation that GMA people only heightened the problem of poverty, unemployment, injustice and non-delivery of services. Indeed after her SONA II, all official talk about the economy was narrowed into numbers and glowing adjectives. Malacañang publicists overlooked the simple fact that GMA was perceived to be campaigning since day one in office. This is why GMA failed to dominate the airwaves in the overpowering way that de Castro did. GMA’s motives were video transparent.
Moreover there is a shift in public opinion in reaction to the extraordinary burst of Senate investigations against political opponents. The Filipino public found the spectacle of Senate investigations fascinating but also disturbing. It appears that the Senate instead of contributing solutions to help solve the problems that ail our society contributes to it by endless investigations leading to nowhere. Meanwhile problems over PPA, high crude prices, stagnating wages and unemployment were taking their toll on the country. Indeed all surveys show that these issues were decisive in determining public approval ratings of GMA.
No doubt FPJ comes from an industry that built their moves out of dreams of people. The men, women, their standards of living and taste are the stuff Filipino dreams are made of. For those moments in the darkened theater, they see the most beautiful women, with the shapeliest legs and most prominent bosoms, the handsomest of men wholly masculinity, all yours to see with nothing else in the way. Yet among these gorgeous personages, they have a heart of gold. FPJ in one film could be an ordinary man, in another a jeepney or taxi driver and still in another a super hero. Yet in all these films, his one outstanding virtue is hat he is not for himself, he fights for the rights of others, he fights and destroys the evil forces in our society. The trouble is that his heroism and good deeds were confined to the world of the celluloid. The fans that saw the protective manner FPJ gallantly treated assertive ladies and the means by which he disposed the bad guys in varying close-ups, would like to see him do the same in the real world. To these people FPJ has seen evil and its violent manifestations and has fought them off. FPJ they insist, is not just another movie star, he is the king of movie stars, the best of the best. Even in the cinema industry, it takes some intelligence to be on top of the heap.
There is obviously a strong relation between the themes of FPJ movies and psychological aspirations of the Filipino masses. Certainly Filipino scriptwriters and movie producers have to present their movies all the traits of the culture in authentic Philippine social setting – whether they be the life in slums or life in the glossy world of the middle class and the power of money. This is what gives their stories authenticity.Movies are still very popular but as a business venture it is not earning as much as it did some ten or fifteen years ago. TV is overtaking Filipino movies as a popular form of entertainment. Much of the movie audiences are turning to TV. TV is cheaper, has more variety, and some of its teledramas have incorporated the dream function of movies.
Unlike FPJ, de Castro is a product of the newer TV industry. But like FPJ he has been the top honcho in his field before he moved over to the Senate. Over DZMM and on ABS-CBN de Castro could be heard and seen reporting energetically and often critically about the president, the senate, the military, the police and the judges. His news coverage sometimes challenged these officials’ most disastrous decisions. In his Magandang Gabi Bayan, he brought to public consciousness problems, issues, ailments and uncertainties of the forgotten masses. While it did not investigate all the nascent signs that something was rotten in government, from time to time he did expose government venality and corporate destruction of the environment, showing media at its indomitable best.
De Castro shared the same mass base as FPJ. In their perception, as a newscaster de Castro was able to hold government to account. And if de Castro is popular, it is because his audience perceived that he used the media to prevent government and big business from damaging the nation and destroying themselves. De Castro’s influence arises from the effect of his reports upon the political thinking of the public on the political elite.
When de Castro joined the Senate – he embodied new politics, the likelihood of turning his supporters’ dreams abandoned by others, into realities. He won the Senate seat without the help of President Arroyo and the major political parties. As a politician, de Castro seemed to be doing what his supporters could welcome in a neophyte. No talk no mistake. If de Castro achieved nothing in the Senate, it was understandable for he was surrounded by pack of wolves in Malacañang’s clothing, who believe that the poor, the unemployed and the minimally employed are irrelevant in the corridors of power.
But de Castro’s supporters believe that given the presidency, he can help the nation eliminate an era of stagnation, dishonesty and greed. Reminded about de Castro’s qualifications and experience, they can only ask what the other experts and specialists have done to the Republic.It is not hard to understand why the common man wanted FPJ or de Castro to run in 2004. From past experience, they had elected over and over many of the best and most qualified politicians that ever flowered in the Philippine political garden. But when confronted with problems of the Republic they have gone to seed rolling along the hard ground of “realism” and ending up eventually as members of the army of helpless and feckless traditional politicians. As far as the supporters of FPJ and de Castro are concerned, the past administrations from Roxas to Arroyo have demonstrated, as perhaps nothing else could have, the total inability of the educated class to solve the urgent economic and social problems of the Republic. They likened the Philippines to a patient diagnosed to have been afflicted with an “illness” that the best-qualified doctors cannot cure. In each case defeat and disaster had been the fate of those who tried to address the problems of the Republic.
The paradox concerns the educated and experienced politicians’ ability to govern the Republic. The fact that they only aggravate the problems suggests that such may not be the main qualifications for a good leader. It is paradoxical that the best educated personages, especially those who claim to have good education and experience on governance, as many of the candidates, cannot seem to profit from their mistakes and reform Philippine society.
Given the way politics is practiced, supporters of FPJ and de Castro are not unaware of the importance of expertise and experience, but from their past experience, it appears that the problems of contemporary Philippine society are beyond their power to redeem. If, like people who are afflicted with an illness in which the best qualified doctors cannot treat, why begrudge them for wanting to try faith healers who perform miracles from time to time? BEN LIM/abs-cbnNEWS.com
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