OPTICS: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY

 

Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behavior of light. Political optics is the way a situation, an event, is perceived by the general public.

GOOD OPTICS

Political optics as a term started with John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon’s first presidential debate in the 1960s. Time in its “How the Nixon-Kennedy Debate Changed the World” narrated:

“On the morning of September 26, 1960, John F. Kennedy was a relatively unknown senator from Massachusetts. He was young and Catholic – neither of which helped his image – and facing off against an incumbent. But by the end of the evening, he was a star.”

            “What the public saw,“ Shaun Holmberg, a social historian wrote, “was a younger Kennedy cool and composed while Nixon was seen as older and sweating profusely while answering questions. It has been fifty-eight years since that night and almost no one remembers what questions were asked. Yet everyone remembers what they saw that night. They remember the visual difference between the two candidates which shaped their perception of who would be a better leader. That debate won Kennedy the presidency.”

BAD OPTICS

            Marcos Jr. might have gotten away from the presidential debates – bad optics -- which would have shaped the public perception of whether he would be a good leader or not of our nation. But being a presumptive winner of the presidency, hence, he will be a “fair game” in a world of optics. These are bad optics as far as his glowing promise of lowering the price of rice to P20 per kilo. Elizabeth Angsioco in her Manila Standard column wrote:

“[H]ow true is it that Marcos and company were seen partying in Solaire where the Uniteam booked 90 rooms, two villas, one tent  and a huge conference room Friday to Sunday following the elections on May 9[?]

“Allegedly, Kim Wong, the businessman implicated in the bank of Bangladesh scandal, booked and paid for the hotel. The tweet came complete with pictures and someone mischievous zoomed in on the wine bottle on the table. It was Opus One, California Red Wine costing around P50,900.00 a pop. Needless to say, only the super-rich can afford this luxury.”

Also, the information is circulating viral on social media that Marcos Jr. has booked the whole island of Amanpulo. Both the Solaire and Amanpulo viral posts were denied by BBM camp. The snag is in the former because of the viral photo of the affair and the seeming reliable journalist-source.

A typical ostentatious display of like-mother-like-son affluence, the alleged parties have all the hallmarks of Imeldific as what Valerie Caulin in her article “11 Bizarre Things You Didn’t Know About Imelda Marcos” wrote:

“Lady Gaga buying a $60,000-fish? Or Elton John spending $2 million on his son’s nursery? They won’t compare to how Madame Imelda spends. Like other affluent clients, she closed down shops for her retail therapy, even spending $40,000 in Honolulu back in 1974. She once shopped for a $3.5-million Michaelangelo painting in Rome. But who can forget her infamous Chinese scandal? She once asked the pilot to turn back to Rome because she forgot to buy cheese.

“From a Cartier tiara to a rare 25-carat pink diamond, the collection was large. It contained a Bulgari bracelet with a price tag of $1 million. It was appraised by Christie’s and is now being auctioned. Total value? A whopping $21 million.”

As the Marcoses celebrated their return to power in the wake of the election, a “missing” painting by Pablo Picasso – Reclining Woman IV -- might have been spotted hanging in the living room of Imelda. Believed to have been spirited away into the Marcoses vaults by the likes of Michaelangelo, Goya, Monet, Braques, Pissarro, and Manet – the Picasso painting is worth about P8 billion.

UGLY OPTICS

Headline: “The Most Greedy Dynasty in the World is Back” (German newspaper)

Sample comments abroad:

“His father was a flawless kleptocrat.”

“World renown for all the wrong reasons.”

“Eternally backward country!”

“It’s a blessing not to be born in the Philippines.”

“The mental state of the people is very pathetic.”

“A nation that forgets its history has no future.”

In the light of the latest political development, the plight of the Filipino OFWs all over the world is disquieting. While racial discrimination has pestered our OFWs in not so few countries around the world, the Kafala system, dubbed as a type of modern slavery, has blighted them in the Middle East, and the growing anti-Asian hate crimes have besieged them in the U.S. Being the country with the biggest source of OFW remittances (40%) from out of the total $34.884 billion (our economy’s crutch) in 2021, the U.S. will take center stage in the finale of this article. I am concerned because my daughter, a nurse, is living there with her family.

The compilation of hate crime data, published by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism, revealed that the U.S. anti-Asian hate crimes increased by 339% in 2021. The latest crime was the Buffalo shooting at a supermarket that left 10 people killed and 3 others wounded. As reported, the suspect allegedly details in his manifesto how he had been radicalized by reading online message boards, and described the attack as terrorism and himself as a White supremacist. He subscribed to a “great replacement” theory – the false belief that White Americans were being “replaced” by people of other races. For example, in the nursing field, the nurses in demand are of the Filipino race – our Pinays.

It is noteworthy that US previous administration attacked protections for immigrants from “shithole countries.” Although the scorn reportedly referred to Haiti and countries in Africa while calling for more immigrants from places like Norway, the recent ugly political optics PH projected to the world may downgrade our status in the eyes of the white supremacists to the level of “shithole countries.” This may be an outlying but with far-reaching fallout.

The commonplace backlash may impact a day-to-day climb on the career ladder in the workplace. The keyword is ceteris paribus – “with other things being equal.” Say, our Pinay nurse is being evaluated for a job promotion against a nurse of another race. “With other things being equal” in both evaluation sheets, the unspoken question in the mind of the superior could make a difference: “Why do you people elect the son of a dictator and plunderer as your president?”

It may not be fair to judge one’s character by his or her nation’s wholesale conduct, but one couldn’t blame the superior if he or she would decide who to promote based on this deeply-anchored personal belief:

Real richness is when you are so expensive that no one can buy your character.