why juday

tanong ng marami, why not claudine, or kris, or ruffa, or sharon? tanong ko, did meralco’s first holdings ask judy ann first because they think she’s the most credible of them all? or maybe she just has the widest fan-base of them all, so wide she got jamby elected to the senate?

jp fenix calls her “the darling of the masses” who was supposed to sweeten the unsavory message that systems losses in our electric bill are real,justified, and legal.

Judy endorses the “systems loss” advocacy with analogy of how some ice melts away on your trip from the store to your home. She adds that systems losses charged to consumers are never higher than what’s prescribed by law.

True enough – but it totally misses the point of what we all find distasteful about this issue. Sure, the kilometers of cables and wires that bridge the generation of power to the consumer at home may result in attrition of the electricity that runs through them. We can accept that, just as we can accept the ice melting on the way home analogy.

What gets our goat is the system loss due to Meralco’s inefficiency… no, ineptitude… no, incompetence… no, plain katamaran, the cost of which is charged to us, the consumers.”

so really the culprit (among others, of course) is meralco, not judy ann, so why fault her for doing the meralco commercial? she got paid for it. trabaho lang. say ni bong austero, juday has the right to peddle opinion:

I read somewhere that Santos did get paid for that infomercial.Four million pesos, if my reckoning serves me right. I don’t see how anyone can take that against her-she is a celebrity who makes money that way. Last I looked, there is no law in this country against making a living. What I can’t take is the wanton disrespect for Santos’ right to make and peddle an opinion because, “she is just an actress.” It’s all part of this dangerous stereotype that casts actresses as simpletons who simply parrot whatever their benefactors ask them to do. Is it too much to assume that Santos has her own mind and her own advocacies?

I understand that someone as popular as Santos has a moral obligation to her followers. I also concede that actresses like her with a massive fan base have the responsibility to take into account some notion of “the common good” in her actions and statements.  But-and this I insist on-no one in this country, absolutely no one, has the right to dictate his or her own notion of what is right or wrong on another person.

At the end of the day, we all have to account for our own actions. If Judy Ann Santos made a grievous mistake by taking the cudgels for Meralco, then that is something that she has to account for personally. But I don’t think she should be castigated for participating in a national debate simply because she is an actress and has been paid to do so. That’s her right and privilege. Excluding her from the debate because she is presumably “inferior” is just another form of bigotry.”

oo nga, judy ann has her own mind and no doubt she has some notion of “the common good” which is perhaps why she was seen, or so i heard, at the wake of ka bel.

but i don’t know that she’s in any position to truly promote the common good, not as long as she’s pushing consumerism big time, doing tv commercials that peddle all sorts of products – laundry detergent, feminine wash, shampoo, ginisa mix, vinegar, clothes, beer, cough medicine, flawless skin, diet pills, pawnshop, sardines, evaporated milk, texting services, perfume, eyewear, watches – raising needs that most of her fan base have no way of gratifying, which is really quite unkind if not downright cruel.

and then, again, who knows, maybe the meralco ad signals a new stage in the evolution of judy ann santos. maybe she’s into political advocacy now. maybe she has political ambitions a la ate vi? hmm, then she should take a sabbatical, do some homework. politics is complicated stuff.