Politicians are lousy actors

Pelting bad actors and actresses with tomatoes or eggs or anything the audience can put their hands on is the usual antics in both drama and comedy shows. We may find it funny and even laugh at this crude display of disgust or displeasure. I can understand children who throw their toys or anything they get hold of just to get attention. But for a man who has supposedly found his way back to the Lord and a former lawmaker at that, committing such act is a mean way to express one’s displeasure and has no place in civilized society.

That was how I felt when I saw in the news video footages of Mark Jimenez (aka Mario Crespo) hanging up rotten vegetables right at the gate of a private residence in Paco which was purportedly owned by business tycoon Lucio Co, or Lucio Kho, whatever his name is. MJ was joined in this act by people claiming to be vegetable farmers whose produce have been reportedly displaced by imported vegetables being dumped and sold at cheaper prices at the domestic markets.

I don’t know what the beef MJ has against Lucio Co. Like Jimenez, Co’s reputation precedes him. If we are to believe MJ’s accusations against Co, the Filipino-Chinese businessman is long been suspected of engaging in smuggling activities and so many other things only heard in whispers and loose talks in and out of the Customs Bureau. I don’t know the guy from Adam. But if the government has the goods against him, send him to jail quick.

MJ did this act last week in the presence of media people who were precisely alerted to cover his latest publicity stunt. He later told in his media interviews that Lucio Co was just one of the tycoons that he wants to hold accountable for the "country’s economic woes" or anything to that effect.

MJ’s shame campaign of humiliating the tycoon in such a crude fashion certainly leaves a bad taste in the mouth. I would have cheered on MJ had he filed a case – backed by solid evidence – against Co in the proper courts. This is what civilized people ought to do. Unless Jimenez also wants to indict the entire judicial system in the country by acting like a vigilante in being the law enforcer, judge and executioner, rolled into one.

It was a cheap stunt, to say the least, and should not be tolerated. Otherwise, anything MJ does outside of the norm could always be interpreted as a political gimmickry. Some opinion writers earlier wrote that he is running for Mayor in Manila. It could be that his handlers are egging him on to do things that could easily land him in the news. In politics, it really helps to be always in the news. Sadly though, his stunts were too obvious and nothing but the gimmick of a politician-"has been" desperately trying to hug the limelight again.

In the absence of solid evidence, MJ’s plan to charge 27 tycoons of monkeyshines could backfire and could leave him charred. One has to look at his checkered past to discern what I’m talking about. It takes more than wearing all white and forming a new religion for him to be taken seriously. While the man talks about God’s plans for him to rescue the oppressed, he badmouths people and looks down on their humble beginnings.

In his usual gibberish monologue, MJ describes some tycoons as "magbobote", "maggugulay," or "magtataho," It is uncalled for Jimenez to look down on humble beginnings of people who made it where they are now through sheer hard work and perhaps some dash of luck. Most of them are proud to have made the rounds of Manila’s streets as junk or even vegetable vendors. They are admired and rewarded for their self-effacing beginnings. Where they are now is a testament that diligence, patience and honest work are still the best tools to make it to the top. It is an insult to our hardworking men and women that a glib-tongued MJ scorns.

In this country, there is a thin ‘red’ line between politics and show business. Many popular showbiz personalities have run and won in elections for public office. For lack of any exposure to the public eye, politicians do their own publicity stunts and gimmicks to get public attention. But politicians are lousy actors, especially if they hire sophomoric scriptwriters and directors like those hired by MJ.

I could see what MJ is aiming for. He wants to project himself as some kind of a knight in shining armor out to save the exploited, the poor and the oppressed by giving them monies and outright dole outs. But I have to give it to him when he pursued the "crusade" to "help" the parents who were unable to collect their children’s tuition funds from financially-troubled pre-need companies. It is a Samaritan act indeed. I salute MJ for this philanthropic act. I think he should stick to this positive means of worthwhile image projection.

Jimenez, as news reports have it, has released some P50 million (or is it only P15 million?) in tuition support to the plan holders of Pacific Plans Inc., should the members of the so-called Parents Enabling Parents (PEP) coalition start asking questions where their "donations" purportedly used to support their recovery bid are going? (PEP is an outspoken conglomeration of PPI plan holders demanding full refund of their educational fund placement). It’s noteworthy to ask this, since we don’t know who’s using whom.

Talk about drama and media hype. MJ’s obvious intention is to lock horns with the big guys to exact the maximum media mileage. He literally entered into the picture when he came to watch the on-going plunder trial of deposed President Joseph Estrada at the Sandiganbayan earlier this month. After doing so, he went again all over the radio and other media outfits to denounce Estrada for allegedly masquerading as "Erap para sa masa" for public consumption but has allegedly enriched himself at the expense of poor Pinoys. And to think Estrada even declared MJ as a "corporate genius," a compliment made by the former President when they were still chummy with each other and while he was in office at Malacañang Palace.

Estrada though did not play into the hands of MJ. He just kept quiet and ignored harangues on him by his erstwhile de facto "presidential adviser on Latin American affairs," in recognition of his very successful computer business operations in Latin American countries. While MJ has already served his prison term in the US, Estrada remains under detention in the latter’s rest house in Tanay, Rizal.

MJ has practically lost almost all his wealth after that unfortunate episode of his life when he was sentenced to two years and three months in a US federal prison and ordered to pay $1.2 million restitution on his guilty plea to election conspiracy and tax evasion charges. Don’t ask me where MJ gets all his monies. A punster calls it "Mark money."

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