Laguna Governor ER Ejercito ushers in the campaign season with Gangnam Style

 

That’s that bullshit right there. Rather, that’s Laguna Governor Emilio Ramon Ejercito dancing Gangnam Style in a Boy Scouts of the Philippines uniform on national TV.

Now, we can’t prevent public officials from appearing on TV to plug their movie or whatever. We can’t prevent them from making movies that we can’t prevent them from appearing on TV to plug either.  We can’t even keep them from campaigning early by appearing on TV and putting out “advocacy ads” before the official campaign starts. But can we, somehow, try to stop them from dancing on national TV? Maybe switching channels whenever a politician whips out their special talent will have some effect.

There’s nothing wrong with dancing, per se. I mean, we do not live in some backwater town where dancing and rock and roll are banned. But that sort of dancing has been the staple of campaign sorties since people started getting bored of things like platforms and policy issues.

Sure, it entertains the masses and makes them feel they are close to a candidate’s heart. But politics should not be about entertainment, and if  history is anything to go by, the masses are rarely ever really close to a victorious candidate’s heart.

TV host Vice Ganda does not mince words when he tries to convince Ejercito to dance to Gangnam Style: “Gov, pag nasayaw mo ito, naku, lahat ng bagets ay boboto na sa iyo (Gov, if you can dance this, all the kids will vote for you).”

Maybe “convince” isn’t quite the right word since Ejercito begins dancing as soon as the music starts playing. He does it well, too. He has obviously put a lot of time, if not thought, into learning to dance that silly little dance. The thought is disturbing considering he should be attending to other things, like running a province that has the town with the highest income in the country, and had two high-profile murders in the same year.

His sons soon join in the dancing, showing people, as Vice Ganda calls it, “Gangnam Style, the Ejercito Way.” Clearly, they have also spent a lot of time rehearsing their moves. This will probably come in handy when the actual campaign season starts, or when they have to dance at their own campaign sorties a few years from now.

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