ONE of the intriguing story lines at least in Cebu City in the May 2019 elections is the filing by businessman and actor Richard Yap and Cebuano basketball icon Donaldo “Dondon” Hontiveros of their certificates of candidacy. Yap is running for congressman in the city’s north district against Rep. Raul del Mar while Hontiveros is running for city councilor under the opposition Barug PDP-Laban.
Their chances of winning (or at least in Yap’s case specifically) were, as expected, downplayed by Mayor Tomas Osmeña of the administration Bando Osmeña-Pundok Kauswagan (BOPK). “You know artists don’t really click in Cebu. I’m happy that they are fielding somebody like that,” Osmeña had said.
Osmeña should know something about that because in the 2016 elections he had in his slate for councilor retired Philippine Basketball Association player Bonel Balingit and radio personality Allan “Golyat” Nacorda. Both lost.
But that does not mean Osmeña is fully correct in his claim. One can’t be conclusive on this using only the cases of Balingit and Nacorda as samples. While some celebrities did lose in past elections, like when talent manager Annabelle Rama ran against del Mar and lost, there were also many instances in other places and even at the national level when celebrities won the elections.
The best examples of that are former president and now Manila City Mayor Joseph Estrada and, to a lesser extent, former senator Lito Lapid. In Cebu, there are long-time Talisay City politician and former Provincial Board (PB) Member Julian “Teban” Daan and former vice governor and former PB Member Fermin “Andoy Purdoy” Celestial—both popular radio personalities.
So would Cebu City voters reject the bids of Yap and Hontiveros? That’s difficult to tell because apparently voters decide not solely on whether a candidate is a celebrity or not. Being a celebrity is but one of the many factors that contribute to a candidate’s win or defeat.
There is no denying, however, that in the current electoral setup, being a celebrity is an advantage in terms of one factor that make a candidate win in an election: name recall. How the celebrity uses that advantage and how the voters size up the celebrity are what makes the difference between winning and losing.