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.
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