You really can’t blame celebrities for running for public office.
They run because they can win.
Remember when Ang Probinsyano had to kill off several characters because the actors playing them were running in the 2019 elections and could no longer appear regularly on television during the campaign period?
Even Cardo Dalisay was no match for Comelec rules.
I hesitate to call Senators Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III, Jinggoy Estrada and Lito Lapid actors-turned-politicians anymore. They have been dual citizens of showbiz and politics for decades.
Then there’s Vilma Santos, who entered politics in 1998 and has since served as Lipa mayor, Batangas governor and representative. She returned as Batangas governor in 2025. By my count, she has won nine elections for public office and remains undefeated.
Richard Gomez is now a congressman after serving as Ormoc mayor. Isko Moreno went from showbiz to Manila councilor, vice mayor and mayor, and is now back at Manila City Hall. There are other examples, too many to enumerate.
We shouldn’t blame actors and celebrities for running any more than we should blame politicians for trying to become celebrities themselves.
Our elections have always been very showbiz anyway. Celebrity endorsements. Campaign jingles. Song-and-dance numbers. Motorcades. Selfies.
Charisma, celebrity and cash have a nasty habit of trumping character and competence.
Some celebrities have taken public service seriously and done well in office.
Robin Padilla, unfortunately, keeps giving us reasons to wonder.
He practically sang his way into the Senate.
During the 2022 campaign, one of his staples was Eric Clapton’s ‘Wonderful Tonight.’ Robin himself later recounted that Viva’s Vic del Rosario advised him against making long speeches. Just be yourself and sing.
So he sang. And sang. ‘Wonderful Tonight.’
It sometimes sounded like drunken karaoke toward the end of a very long night.
It worked.
Robin Padilla topped the 2022 senatorial election with more than 26 million votes.
In a country where singing the wrong karaoke song has reportedly gotten people killed, Robin repeatedly assaulted ‘Wonderful Tonight’ and was rewarded with a seat in the Senate.
You have to admire the electoral efficiency.
Then the singing stopped and the legislating began.
Robin became chairman of the Senate Committee on Constitutional Amendments and Revision of Codes and one of the chamber’s most persistent advocates of Charter change and federalism.
He has also pushed legislation worth taking seriously, including divorce and an anti-political dynasty measure.
But the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte has given us some remarkable Robin moments.
When questions arose about the choice of a presiding officer, Robin acknowledged turning to Google to understand some of the legal terminology. He joked that he had not graduated from UP or Ateneo. His UP, he said, was the ‘University of Prison.’
Nothing wrong with Google. There is something disconcerting, though, about one of only 24 senator-judges learning the vocabulary of an impeachment trial while already sitting in judgment.
Robin also questioned whether copies of Sara Duterte’s controversial Zoom remarks could be treated as authentic evidence, insisting on the original or ‘raw’ recording. Retired Supreme Court Justice Adolf Azcuna and others explained that electronic evidence does not necessarily work that way.
Then Robin complained that House prosecutors appeared to be ‘one-sided.’
Well, yes. They’re the prosecution. The people who aren’t supposed to be one-sided are the senator-judges.
And now Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio and Ninoy Aquino have somehow wandered into Sara Duterte’s confidential-fund controversy.
Robin invoked famous Filipinos who had used aliases in arguing that aliases themselves were not unusual. Eventually he got to Ninoy’s ‘Marcial Bonifacio.’
Bam Aquino supplied the rather important distinction: his uncle may have used an alias, but Ninoy didn’t have confidential funds or acknowledgment receipts to liquidate.
The issue isn’t whether people sometimes use aliases. It is whether acknowledgment receipts bearing questionable names prove that public money was actually spent for legitimate confidential purposes.
I wrote recently in ‘Which Lawyer?’ about the Senate I first knew when I worked there after the 1986 People Power Revolution. Jovy Salonga was Senate President and there were more lawyers than nonlawyers in the chamber. Even the nonlawyers were accomplished people who brought something to the table-diplomacy, business, journalism, labor, local government.
I suppose that’s partly why Robin’s performance bothers me.
If you don’t bring legal expertise to the Senate, what expertise are you bringing?
None of this means celebrities shouldn’t run for office.
The problem isn’t celebrity. It’s mistaking celebrity for qualification.
The Romans, whose republic gave us the Senate, had their own celebrities. But among the political elite, gloria was ideally attached to accomplishment-public office, military achievement, civic service. Portraits of prominent Romans came with inscriptions recording offices held and honors earned.
Reputation came with a résumé.
We have simplified matters considerably.
Today, millions of followers on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube or Instagram can make someone famous simply for being famous.
Politicians understand this. That’s why they dance on TikTok, recruit celebrity endorsers and behave during campaign season like they’re auditioning for a noontime show.
Celebrities understand it too.
If popularity wins elections, why shouldn’t they run?
Kiko Barzaga understood it.
He rode cat memes, ‘meow meow’ and his ‘Congressmeow’ persona into the House in 2025.
Once there, he was suspended. Then suspended again. In June, the House finally expelled him, 265-14, for repeated misconduct.
Apparently nine lives do not apply to congressional terms.
Electing legislators isn’t supposed to be entertainment.
These are people who write laws, scrutinize billions in public spending, investigate wrongdoing, amend the Constitution and, occasionally, sit as judges in an impeachment trial that can remove the country’s second-highest official.
Instead, campaigns give us jingles, dancing, viral videos, slogans and personalities.
The campaign ends.
The music stops.
Somebody has to govern.
Robin Padilla is easy to laugh at. But Robin didn’t elect himself.
We did.
And after all his shenanigans in the Senate, Robin is still at or near the top of early surveys for the 2028 Senate elections.
Pulse Asia had him numerically on top with 48.4 percent voter preference, although statistically tied within the top ranks. OCTA Research subsequently put him at a clear number one with 53.9 percent.
Robin Padilla.
Number one again.
Maybe he’ll sing ‘Wonderful Tonight’ again.
Why change a winning platform?