Rallies, Philippine style

I have always been fascinated by political rallies. I think it’s a product of my real life experience when I spoke during rallies and stood on many a stage to campaign for my late father who ran for provincial board member then. It seems only yesterday when I was hopping from one stage to another as we were doing the campaign sorties all over Bohol back in the late eighties. I relocated to General Santos City and I still attended rallies from time to time.

LP rally at the Tagbilaran City Plaza

Well, I relived the experience last night. I attended a rally. I did not expect surprises there. I only expected speeches from the candidates. I got the surprise of the night when an artista (movie actor) came out and serenaded the audience. It turned out the artista is a long-time friend of a local candidate.

As expected, the women cheered and sighed. Cheered because the actor, no matter his age, has kept his boyish looks, and sighed because women are such romantic creatures and they connected to his songs. You know how it is with us women. We vicariously feel that every song is dedicated to us.

          

Tirso Cruz III serenading the audience.

After the oohs and ah, the rally continued with a new set of candidates. We left soon after. My intent was just to take photos of the event.   

Nothing changes. Rallies are the same each time. Speeches, some dances from paid entertainers, guest actors and singers who could either perform free or with a fee depending on the actor's or singer's relationship with a candidate, more speeches, and cheers and yells from the audience. Rallies are supposed to make us understand and appreciate a party’s platform of governance and the candidates’ reasons or advocacies for running. There are other avenues of course. But for all intents and purposes, rallies simply color the election process.