ADVERTISING—the world’s oldest profession—has done it again.

Thanks to that demonic “Dagat ng Basura” song plus P240 million worth of ads for January alone, Manny Villar has managed to land a statistical tie with Noynoy Aquino according to a recent SWS survey. Well, the survey didn’t really say that said ad was responsible for this surge. But I’m also pretty sure it has nothing to do with fiery oratorical skills and clear articulation of platforms.

Barring some last-minute voodoo by the present occupants of Malacanang, or Comelec, whichever the case may be (they seem to be interchangeable), I have no doubt in my mind that Manny Villar will become the next president of the Philippines. And I make that statement with the same degree of rejoicing while waiting for my prostate surgery.

This makes me sound cynical, but you can’t blame me. In all my life as a voter, I never once got the presidents I wanted: Salonga, Miriam (she was merely semi-insane then), Roco, and … what the hell does it matter. What makes me weep is the idea that my fate for the next six years would be decided by the same horde that watches Wowowee and gets delirious over that “Dagat ng Basura” song— the same increasingly ever-expanding demographic that might not understand what “insertion” means but practices it radically according to the Pimentelian definition. We get the kind of government we deserve. All hail President Villar.

In the headlines this week was a study by the National Statistical Coordination Board concluding that Filipino voters in general do not select their leaders “on the basis of good governance, platform or issues.” Dah.

That this presidential race would be determined by the profusion of ads is akin to a dog show where the winner is the one who pisses and poops all over the place the most. And of all the dogs onstage, it seems that Villar would leave the biggest, warmest mound of excrement and the biggest and smelliest pool of urine. Since 2009, he has inflicted on us a string of ads and jingles designed to worm their way into our memory. Anyone remember “Akala mo conio/ Yun pala hindi…?” I still wake up in the middle of the night with those dark syllables reverberating in my skull.

Okay, okay, you’re poor, we get it. Do you need to hammer it in? Oh, yes, of course, you do. But remember that crap could have been a beautiful piece of cauliflower once, or a slice of glisteningly fresh fish. And that Adolf Hitler was a painter in his youth, and that Pol Pot studied radio technology in Paris.

If you’re the self-proclaimed “first brown billionaire of the Philippines” it’s only expected that you get only the best that filthy lucre can buy. I’m sure any agency that has a cell phone firm, a fried-chicken chain, and Belo, among others, as its clientele must be doing something right.