Jun Magsaysay is acting like the trapo he could be

Ramon "Jun" Magsaysay, Jr. is disgusting. He may very well be a good politician, but the way he is running his campaign for another Senate seat is so uncouth that it makes him look like a trapo.

I do not really follow this year's elections closely. In fact, I still do not have a list of candidates to vote for, and I may be submitting a voting sheet with only three circles filled out. Perhaps looking at this year's roster tires me out, because they all look like they could not be trusted. Same old, same old.

But something is seriously wrong with Jun Magsaysay.

My first encounter with Magsaysay's campaign is with his widely-circulated poster. In it, he stands in front of the picture of former President Ramon Magsaysay, his popular father who died in a plane crash.

This poster is, of course, done in bad taste. It looks like Jun is only relying on his father's popularity, to mask any little accomplishment that he could brag about. It is as bad as a social climber name-dropping supposed A-list friends just to get into an exclusive party.

The reason behind the poster is understandable though, because name association works. At least he may be saying that he is like his father, who is arguably the best President we ever had.

Then this happened:

This happened in ABS-CBN's Harapan forum last Sunday: when Jun Magsaysay was asked to deliver his closing remarks, he did not hesitate to open his shirt to call upon the fans of Richard Yap to vote for him.

If it's not the height of sleaziness, I don't know what it is.

Let us back track a bit. Richard Yap, more popularly known as Papa Chen or Ser Chief, is Jun Magsaysay's political endorser. He has appeared in several political ads for him, pleading for votes. Money is most probably involved.

That Sunday, Jun Magsaysay arrived in the debate's venue with Richard Yap. He was the only candidate to do so. Yap patiently sat out the whole of the debate in the front row, shielding himself from getting photographed with fans and getting interviewed by the press.

The whole affair felt odd from the start. Why would Yap, a very busy actor, take time off his rest day just to watch a candidate he was endorsing live? I think it was a show of force from Jun, who may be thinking in his head that since he paid Yap, the actor may as well follow him around.

And yet, I still was not prepared enough for what Jun did. Instead of asking the people to vote for him because his achievements are solid and that he could be trusted to do more of these, he just opened his shirt, pointed to his celebrity endorser, then told the audience that if they like the actor, then they should vote for him too.

That was a huge turn-off.

Why is Jun Magsaysay, an experienced politician, doing this? Why is he staunchly relying on trapo-tested techniques like this to further his campaign? Why did he get not one, but two celebrity endorsers? How much did he pay Richard Yap and this guy:

?

Is he wary that today's young voters will not relate to him? This concern is warranted, since previous candidates who are like him failed to get their Senate seats back. See: Francisco Tatad.

Despite this worry, he should never stoop to the lowest common demoninator denominator just to win. He could very well be a good candidate in this year's senatorial elections, but all the noise he is making is obscuring us from seeing this in him.