WHO SAYS ENTERTAINMENT and politics are strange bedfellows?
They aren’t.
Showbiz and governance are complementary with each other.
Or more to it, they are one and the same.
Here we are in front of a TV set or a digital screen streaming not a teleserye–although another version or close to it in real time—but a tension-filled scene inside the Philippine Senate during a lull period where Tito Sotto, its President, sitting on his table, is grumbling about the earlier public remarks of his fellow senator, Ronald “Bato” de la Rosa.
 The DDS lawmaker is explaining his intents if not contexts or whatever why he reacted to one of the erstwhile “Iskul Bukol”‘s Escalera brothers’ interviews that the minority’s common response to the latter’s appearance at tri-comm on the flood control project scandals is just a “gimmick.”
In his interview, Sotto said that he might be misconstrued by the minority as a lap dog of Martin Romualdez.
De la Rosa argued that “the Senate is not a noontime show where what are being taken are all gimmicks.”
Sotto, obviously, took offense on that part of Bato’s privilege speech.
The Duterte ally was definitely referring to “Eat Bulaga,” a daily television variety show where Tito is an on and off host
Tito Sen clarified that his being at the House of Representatives was a request granted and legal.
He insinuated that the minority “can die of hurt feelings” which the bloc didn’t take the tirade sitting down.
This, in a significant way, has stirred the hornet’s nest.
What really makes a majority or a minority a potent force for the advancement of people’s lives and their interests?
Do they really matter in the progress of the nation or the country is even dug into the quagmire of political partisanship?
Eventually, anyway, the SP apologized to allude to the minority by using the word “gimmick” which carries a contextual derogatory meaning.
Euphemistically, though, gimmick has already acquired a favorable sense of purpose as in its Tagalog direct translation “gimik” which means a social gathering with friends.
“We are raising legitimate issues here which require legitimate attention,” quipped de la Rosa on his cohorts’ presence in the chamber.
Hey, wait.
Ruckus reeks in the Senate as long as one remembers, for Christ’s sake.
A case in point was during the most trying times on the dismissal of the impeachment trial against Vice President Sara Duterte.
At the time, wasn’t the coaching of JIL member Joel Villanueva on ex-dictator’s daughter Imee Marcos to invoke a point of order, a trick or a device to call attention to stage a gimmick?
Or during election campaigns of the likes of these once Senate hopefuls, singing and dancing are precisely gimmicks to court the precious votes of the voters?
While at it, may we request the TVJ member to please widen his vocabulary pronto!
It’s not too late to employ diction for an entertainer who is up for the listening pleasure of diverse audiences instead of being an apologist.
These scenarios are indeed entertaining for the public who’s fascinated to grandstanding or just plain discourse.
The Senate or Congress, or any branch of government or public estates for that matter, in any time of showmanship like investigation in aid of legislation, is a courtroom drama, a big TV program eliciting spectacle for popular subscription.
One cannot simply take away amusement from public service.
They are inevitably conduits.
But they ought to be for the betterment of society not otherwise happening these days where mediocrity reigns and the nation is going to the dogs.
Gov’t and media are institutions which we can refer to their classic definitions.
According to Aristotle in AI overview, “entertainment” is restoration for serious work and higher-level human activities such as philosophical contemplation, civic engagement or pursuit of human flourishing or there you are, in its linguistic mode, eudaimonia.
In the same vein, the classic philosopher and critic says that “government” is a natural association (polis) whose purpose is to enable its citizens to achieve a “good life” by living together under common laws and pursuing virtue.