Cartoon BY: Aaron Paul C. Caril
EDITORIAL
Rise to stardom: The influence of celebrity politics, social media and AI in Philippine elections
In a post-EDSA landscape, television has become the name of the game. Two major factors contributed to television’s strong influence in Philippine elections, among other things. First, the influence of the major political parties that dominated from 1946 had been weakened during the Martial Law years. Second, due to rapid population growth, which made face-to-face campaigning less effective, candidates turned to the amorphous mass media market to solicit votes.
Throughout Philippine history, celebrities have been known to have established a substantial number of followers called “fans” who develop parasocial relationships with them; in a one-sided relationship, the fan extends emotional energy, interest, and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other’s existence. This phenomenon led to “celebrity culture” beginning to take hold in our communities, and political candidates, who could no longer launch their political platforms through the traditional political parties, took advantage of their popularity to garner the “masa” votes.
The early stage of the participation of celebrities in Philippine elections was their endorsement as rooters, or supporters, of particular candidates. In 1971, superstar Nora Aunor sang Juan Ponce Enrile’s campaign jingle “Aksyon Agad Enrile.” Then famous stars Amalia Fuentes and Susan Roces publicly endorsed individual politicians. In the most recent national elections, actress-influencer Toni Gonzaga’s public endorsement had contributed to a certain extent to the success of President Marcos’ bid for the presidency.
Though it was unclear then if celebrity endorsements translated into actual votes, the next wave of the use of celebrity culture was an experiment by the celebrities themselves running for public office. The famous Rogelio de la Rosa was successful in his senatorial bid in 1957. Big names in Philippine politics, such as former President Erap Estrada, Noli de Castro, and Loren Legarda, first developed solid parasocial relationships with their fans as celebrities before they became politicians.
The use of television as a platform to reach out to voters has been criticized and considered detrimental to our political system. Television is not conducive to complex policy discussions, especially nuanced policies that must be critically examined by experts in the field. It is proven effective for nurturing parasocial relationships between celebrities and their fans, but it is politically dangerous for voters to blindly entrust the seats of power to politicians who have the means to portray themselves superficially as honest, credible, and effective public officials.
Strong criticism of the use of television for policy discussions remains even with the advent of new platforms in social media and artificial intelligence (AI). With AI, a compelling campaign platform can be prepared without much thought and deliberation. This can be launched effectively on social media platforms that also use AI to target voters. The only missing link is how AI-enabled social media campaigns translate to votes.
While the candidates for the board of directors or trustees and top management in publicly listed companies and leading non-profit organizations undergo a rigorous screening process by their respective nomination and screening committees to assess their qualifications and capacity to lead, there is no equivalent of the nomination and screening committees in Philippine elections.
The seats of power called public office have been entrusted by the electorate to the elected leaders purely based on trust developed through television, radio, social media, and, perhaps, artificial intelligence. We can only hope that this trust the electorate gives is not obtained through deceit.