People will say it's about time to treat the presidency with seriousness and solemnity. The reasoning that our brand of democracy never goes anywhere is this: if we can make fun of the head of state, the occupant of the highest seat of power, then what's sacred anymore? In the senator's case, he no longer needs an image-demolition team from opponents–with a sister with brains in her mouth.
Noynoy isn't even president but instead of platforms and agenda for change, all his youngest sister can ever talk about is his receding hairline, his awful pleated pants, and how she's consulting with comedian and wig-store owner Arnell Ignacio about matters follicular. I can very well understand this concern about hair, as well as the mad scampering for designers and stylists. Only shallow people do not judge by first impressions, Oscar Wilde reminds us. What would be infinitely more humiliating, however, is this: when the entire world knows about your tragically receded hairline, and all of a sudden you appear on TV with a Koreanovela star's full head of hair.
"The idea of fashion," writes the semiologist Roland Barthes, "is antipathetic to the idea of sainthood." That last word is the very foundation of this whole Noynoy-for-president business in the first place. For the youngest sister to mindlessly open her mouth is to piss on the mythology.
But maybe we just have to resign ourselves to this fact: it's Kris Aquino's world–we and Kuya Noynoy just live in it.
