Showbiz and politics

The 2025 midterm elections circus has come to town, as they say, and what a joke it’s turning out to be.

There are 18,280 elective posts and each voter will elect 12 senators, one district representative, one partly-list representative and local officials in each province, city and municipality, according to the Commission on Elections.

I waited for the filing period to end before writing this piece, hoping that at the last minute, there would be more respectable candidates and less of the laughable ones.

But judging from the long list of individuals who filed Certificates of Candidacy, it’s become a dizzying crop of wannabe politicos.

One can only conclude that Philippine politics has spiraled down deeper and deeper into a rabbit hole of dark comedy, horror and entertainment all rolled into one, accompanied by an underlying dystopian vibe.

There’s a long list of trapos, dynasties, ex-showbiz personalities or washed-out celebrities, children of convicted scammers, content creators, online personalities and just about anyone who can actually sign that piece of document, hold it for the cameras and formally file it with the Comelec.

Actually, even those who cannot go to the Comelec and file the certificate themselves can send someone to do it on their behalf just as what the self-anointed Son of God and alleged human trafficker Apollo Quiboloy, who is detained at Camp Crame, did last week.

Now, it has become difficult to tell the nuisance candidates from the supposed legitimate ones. What a sorry state we’ve unwittingly found ourselves in. It’s nausea-inducing, indeed.

But most of all, it’s dangerous. Is this the kind of society we will be bequeathing to our children and our children’s children?

This is all happening because Philippine laws practically allow just about anyone to run for public office.

If you are running for president and vice-president, for instance, you must simply be a natural-born citizen, a registered voter, able to read and write, resident of the Philippines for at least 10 years and at least 40 years of age on the day of election.

If you are running for the senate or the House, the qualifications are similar except the age and the residency