Rough draft/Extended version of conference paper

EUROSEAS 2007

Fostering desire: The power of celebrity

Trina Joyce Sajo

University of the Philippines
Third World Studies Center

Kris and tell: Star power and socialized scandals

In the annals of Filipino entertainment history, nothing compares to Kris Aquinos 2003
tell-all tale of abuse, relished with stories of a 9mm gun poked on her head and a nasty
sexually transmitted disease (STD) contracted from former lover, actor-politician Joey
Marquez. The scandal became the centerpiece of morning and evening news. On the
weekly evening news TV Patrol, a primetime news program in Kris home studio ABS-
CBN, popular current affairs personality Korina Sanchez launched a live interview with
the seemingly traumatized Kris. Meanwhile, Saksi, the rival news program on GMA 7,
aired an interview with the pathetically meek Joey Marquez, begging for forgiveness
while denying his lovers accusations. The competing networks seemed to have pitted
estranged showbiz couples lovers in the familiar he said, she said post-breakup
scenario that rivals any soap opera.

Four years after the romantic malady, Kris Aquino, daughter of a former president and
one of the richest actresses in Philippine showbiz, is once again embroiled in the scandal
that rendered an impact that is literally transnational in scope. In February 2007, Filipinos
were glued to daily news footages of the travails of a famous celebrity, whose hopes of
building a family are crushed by an ordinary employee of a famous dermatology clinic
who goes public about her affair with Kris young husband, basketball player James Yap.
The following day the televised revelation of the stormy relationship became the main
course for mealtime talk at work or at home. And for the next few days, people who
caught the gossip bug were virtually chewing the cud. Every angle of the story was
subject to discussion, opinion and ridicule. For many who care for showbiz gossip, Kris
virtually became breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack and even appetizer

On February 18, 2007 Kris admitted in her gossip talk show The Buzz that she and her
husband were having marital problems. She quelled the intrigues simply by admitting to
the marital conflict, but did not go through details. Kris also virtually dragged her
husband in that interview. They made it appear that James boldly agreed to come and
apologize to his wife in public. The apology was rendered without disclosing the
wrongdoing exactly. The only reason James uttered repeatedly, sometimes in slightly

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different syntactic combinations, is that he has hurt his wife. The visual tension between
Kris and James also added spice to the drama. The couple in crisis seemed all too real and
spontaneous, including Kris deliberate shoving off of James hand thinking the camera
was no longer running.

Her attempts to keep a lid on her marital problem proved to be in vain. A week after the
interview a woman using the pseudonym Hope surfaced on GMA 7s gossip TV show
Startalk with her face hidden from camera. Lolit Solis, one of the gossip talk shows
hosts, asked her point after point about her alleged involvement in Kris Aquino and
James Yaps marital troubles. Hope claimed she had an affair with James Yap that lasted
eleven months.

Kris Aquino tried to project the image of a strong duty-bound wife who would stand by
her husband. The husband naturally denied the alleged affair consistentlyclaiming,
instead, to be the victim of Hopes fatal attraction. Such fulfillment of public expectations
of a wealthy wife suffering silently over her husbands alleged indiscretions, all the
while trying to manage the situation in the most dramatic and respectable way possible,
boosted ratings of her own gossip show, as well those of other channels closely following
her scandal-ridden marital life. The Kris-James-Hope scandal is no longer in the gossip
circuit, but in the imagination of Filipinos swathed in showbiz inanities, Kris Aquino
remains a controversial figure whose exciting career and personal life never fails to dull
their gossip-hungry senses.

Kris Aquinos power lies in the public disclosure of her relationship woes produced in the
visuality and aurality of media. Her performance of coping with these scandals captivates
the public that the images seem to impress on public memory much more than national
history, or practical, relevant issues in everyday civic culture. Kris Aquino is seemingly
embedded in our social fabric: every instance of her domestic life becomes subject to
valuation. As one avid follower of the latest Kris Aquino malady said: Our lives are
never exciting without Kris.

In what follows, I wish to offer a reading of Kris Aquinos power as a celebrity. I argue
that Kris Aquinos capacity to make it in the news (gossip circuit) time and again and
captivate audiences is brought by a spectacular combination of positions: as TV host of
shows that simulate reality, and a political and class-driven figure whose personal life is
publicly dramatized. Following Graeme Turners definition of celebrity as a genre of
representation and a discursive effect (2004), Kriss popularity, her ability to defy
collective amnesia (Tolentino 2000) is forged by the publics desire for an imagined
community in a media-saturated socio-cultural landscape. This imagined community
is construed by middle class aspirations of wealth and mobility and an observably weak
modern, political culture. Kris Aquinos celebrity power simulates the public desire to
retain intimacy and control over the uncertainties of a globalized society. At the same
time, Kris also dissimulates this desire for some semblance of community and national
identity by virtue of her political and social upbringing as part of the wealthy elite. I
situate these interconnected webs within recent developments in Philippine culture and
television.

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Virtuality and Filipino culture

Many scholars have acknowledged that the last two decades experienced a marked
cultural shift on a global scale. Postmodernity, a still contested but almost hackneyed
term used by scholars to refer to this particular spatial and temporal moment, is
characterized by increased information and capital flows and rapid technological
development. Postmodernity can also be tied to the notion of globalization, in particular
the structural decentering of cultural capital, usually coming from the West, towards
worldwide distribution. Additionally, scholars observe that these cultural flows are not
simply one-directional, from West to East, but a complex network involving negotiation
and collaboration with non-Western countries (Iwabuchi 2003, 19). Of course the profit
motive is always at the heart of such convergence, the appropriation of which would
necessarily vary among countries. A symptom of such complex cultural flows is the
experience of virtual realitysymbolized by the public and widespread use of digital
mediamobile phones, video discs, cameras, the Internet, and the like. Virtuality, as
mode of structural and symbolic experience, and may also be understood as a crucial
factor that distinguishes postmodernity from modernity.

In the Philippines, these supposedly new configurations have been more visible and felt
with the advent of digital technology and increased media interactivity. The rather
belated reception of transformative cultural flows may be attributed to seemingly
paradoxical attitude towards science and technology. Anthropologist Raul Pertierra
writes: Philippine culture readily accepts new technologies but is less interested in
developing themWhile technologies are quickly assimilated, their transformative
potentials have been unfulfilledPhilippine culture is still too monolithic and non-
differentiated to allow the florescence of more specialized interests such as science and
technology (2004, 1). The success of mobile phones, for instance, is due to a strong
cultural orientation for constant and perpetual contact, not because of heightened
technological competency (1). Nor does this phenomenon indicate increased
specialization found in developed countries. In his book the author argues that mobile
phone use in the Philippines represents a particular cultural discrepancy: while Filipinos
welcome new digital technologies, they also resist the tendency towards differentiation
and depersonalizationa logical consequence of technological mediation. The mobile
phone works conveniently for Filipinos because it allows faster communication and
interconnectivity with less mobility or none at all, while still retaining privacy and
intimate, personal ties (9).

This implies that in the Philippines, virtuality, as a subfeature of postmodernity is

experienced more as extensions of the cultural era that precedes it. Before, when face-to-
face, neighborhood talk and gossip are popular pastimes. With the advent of print and
later televisual media, the repertoire of trivialities to talk about is broadened. Apart from
talk about people that one is familiar or intimate with, tabloids and television enable the
individual to be in-the-know about their favorite stars and shows (Pertierra 12).

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In the age of virtual reality and media convergence, communication becomes interactive.
As such, viewers/voyeurs/spectators can now talk-back, react/respond to gossip, or
share the news through different and interconnected formats. Communication reach is
much broader and complex, allowing both strangers and non-strangers to participate in
the circulation of considerably banal or trivial subject matters. But such trivialities
should not be simply dismissed; it should invite us to ask, instead, why personalized
communication and gossip are prevalent in Philippine culture and social life and how
new virtual technologies enable, or even perpetuate such practices. Pertierra concedes
that new media particularly the cellphone fails to bind people to a real and public
world:

...(O)ther structures are necessary such as strong civic culture, a robust and
redistributive economy and an effective polity. The new media are unable to
generate these structures. In their absence, they may only provide us with a very
tentative grounding in the worlda grounding that only allows Filipinos to
connect with the trivial, the banal and the personal of everyday life. This everyday
world consists of the telenovela, the pleasures of malling and the hope of winning
the lottery, or of being sponsored by a relative overseas.

Some scholars argue that postmodernity in the Philippines is not new at all. In analyzing
the adoption of recent global media, noted culture critic Isagani Cruz (2006) argues that
what can be considered as instances of postmodernity are actually endemic to Filipino
everyday culture. Too often, these practices are often taken for granted. As an example,
he writes: Someone driving a Japanese car with the CD player or iPod blasting out a
pirated American song may strike European critics as postmodern, but if we look at old
Philippine houses, we will realize that eclecticism is the rule rather than the exception in
Philippine culture. He also cites the expressive and social function, the purposive
quality as opposed to the value rationality (Pertierra 2006, 11 citing Weber) of
cellphones. He claims that these devices are meant not so much to achieve the goals of
pragmatic communication (Pertierra 11), but mainly to gain access to or circulate
gossip.

Virtual culture is not only limited to digital technologies. Symbolic representations can
also be found in the changing urban landscape. In mega-Manila and other mega-cities,
for instance, consider the malls that mushroom at every high-speed train station, or the
presence of McDonalds or local counterparts (e.g., Jollibee) in every street corner.
Though the Philippines is easily perceived as highly Westernized just by observing the
emblems of advertising and capitalist consumption that embellish urban highwaysmore
American that America as Cruz saysactual consumption practices of Western imports
contains inconsistencies, or illogics, which can be read as subversion and resistance to
cultural imperialism. In the advent of virtuality, we find yet more paradoxes, extensions,
and even perhaps reinventions of taken-for-granted cultural practices.

This perceived eclecticism in social life as it flourishes is not quite novel as

postmodern theory tends to impress upon intellectual discourse. Filipino cultures manner
of adapting to foreign influence may strike the foreign eye as uncanny but such blurring

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of boundaries, such paradoxes are quite endemic, taken-for-granted even, among
Filipinos. Such paradoxesand if I may add, forms of hybridity as wellare the norm
rather than the exception, as Isagani Cruz would put it. Hence, even while there is
apparently an open entry of virtual experience via Internet, mobile phones, and
interactive television such as reality TV, it is worth articulating just how such complex
webs of reception operates in mediated/media-saturated life of ordinary Filipinos.

Virtuality and Philippine television

Moving closer to the televisual medium, the rise of virtual reality can also be found in the
popularity of so-called reality TV. Reality TV roughly resembles the soap opera or
telenovela genre due to the human realistic melodrama feature, but the more important
emphasis is its representation, even the insistence of reality. This is operative in the use
of ordinary people and non-actors, the apparent naturalness of storytelling and
melodrama because the lines seem to be unrehearsed, and the claim that events occur
live or in real time (Couldry 2003). All these features have transformed not just
media itself but also its relationship with the viewing public, for it suggests what
poststructalists thought would express as the placing the boundary of the screen and the
viewer (voyeur) under erasure1. To be sure, television as a broadcast medium has long
claimed to connect us with a shared social reality (102) through various types of
presentations or formats. As technology developed beginning in the 1970s, (t)here was a
complex interplay between technological possibilities, the cultural recognition of those
possibilities in mainstream television, and subsequent economics, as the ordinary
person in the 1990s became a valued television commodity (102, quoted from Corner
1996). Reality TV has mutated into various styles and themes. For contemporary reality
TV, the main features are (Couldry 102):

1 recording on the wing events in lives of individuals or groups; or

2 the attempt to simulate real-life events through dramatized reconstruction; or
3 the incorporation of (1) and (2) in edited form in a packaged programme.

Reality TV shows are emblems of the virtual age: it obscures the distinction between the
real and the reel, between fiction and reality, and raises ideological questions, such as
just how live is lived reality in from of the camera? Additionally, ironyextreme
irony, if I may qualifyis a staple feature of virtuality, and this irony is tied not just to
mere representation but simulation.2

1
My use of the term follows the Derridean sense, although my understanding is rather elementary. I use the
notion of under erasure to assert the distinction from complete erasure or implosion, as some postmodern
theorists might argue. To say that the boundary is under erasure is to argue that there is an evident
breachthe proverbial blur of one entity and another, but there remains traces of the two prior to the
merging.
2
Representation in virtual time-space is made more confounding. Simulation, in postmodern terms,
reverses the order of direct representationthe mere copying, mimicking, parodying reality. Like the map
in Jorge Luis Borges On Exactitude in Science, simulation suggests that the experience of virtual reality is
more real that real, as if the reality that was initially copied is naturalized and becomes ontologically

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The reality TV format made waves in the US and UK, with the popularity of shows like
Survivor and Big Brother. There have been precedent prototypes of course, notably the
MTVs The Real World, or cop shows like 911 the reruns of which have been shown
through cable services in the Philippines. Cable television in the country, however, is
limited to particular segments of the population who can afford to subscribe to the
service, or have access to it. But as the popularity and magnitude reality TV gained
worldwide, it caught the attention of giant broadcasting networks in the Philippines.
Gradually reality TV seeped into local, non-cable channels. The popularity of reality TV
soared among viewers when supposedly Filipino versions of the commercially
successful shows in the international scene began airing on local channels. For example,
ABS-CBN airs the Filipino version of Big Brother3, a show originally developed by
Endemol, a production company based in the Netherlands (Wikipedia 2007). The show is
quite aptly titled, Pinoy4 Big Brother. In the rival channel GMA 7, a talent show called
Starstruck mimics foreign talent shows the likes of Pop Idol (UK) and American Idol.
What makes these recent reality shows different from its predecessors is heightened
interactivity. As these shows follow the process of elimination to determine the sole
winner, viewers are encouraged to vote for the favorite contestants to keep them from
being booted out. Often, mobile phones are used to cast votes, as in the case of
Starstruck.

Gossip and talk about the episodic developments in the show are also encouraged via
mobile texts and the Internet. In the case of Pinoy Big Brother, interactive chatrooms are
televised alongside shots of contestants as they go about with their simulated everyday
life in the Big Brother house, seemingly unaware of surveillance cameras. Aired in the
wee hours of the morning, the contestants are shown in their most intimate, vulnerable,
and spontaneous moments, alone or with fellow housemates. Of course, one could
speculate just how spontaneous these videos are; whether or not the contestants know
they are under surveillance. I would argue that such events (Scannel 2002) are in fact
naturalized. There is intentionality in so far as the producers are concerned, and the
contestants more or less have an idea of the contest mechanics. But the more profound
impact of such a show is the extent to which audiences are made to participate in the
construction of realitythe response of viewers could determine the fate of the
contestants. Such are just some nuances of simulated reality in a medium that already
works to represent reality.

more encompassing. Again, I do not wish to approximate the idea made popular by postmodern theorist
Jean Baudrillard.
3
Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, has this general description of the show:

Big Brother is a reality television format. In each series, which lasts for around three months, a
number of people (normally fewer than fifteen at any one time) live together full-time in a 'Big
Brother House', isolated from the outside world but under the continuous gaze of television
cameras. The housemates try to winby avoiding periodic, usually publicly-voted, evictions from
the house. The show's name comes from George Orwell's 1949 novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in
which Big Brother is the all-seeing leader of the dystopian Oceania.
4
Pinoy is a colloquial term referring to a Filipino male, but can be used to refer to any Filipino in
general.

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Gossip, game shows and virtual reality

The rise of reality television is quite unprecedented in the history of television. Not only
did it introduce a new style of representation, it also served as a template in the
reformatting of established TV genres. In showbiz talk shows, which involve the careers
and private lives of showbiz personalities, talk show hosts no longer monopolize or
control the program, e.g., as the bearer of gossip. TV hosts now get to become subjects
of gossip themselves, thereby being placed in a rather ambivalent position. Another
feature of contemporary celebrity gossip shows is the use of media interactivity. In a
gossip show entitled Showbiz Central, which airs Sundays on GMA 7 and simulcasted
over radio station DZBB, a major controversy or celebrity gossip is presented in a
question format. Viewers and radio listeners are asked whether they believe in the news
or not, for which they cast their vote by phone or text.

Reality shows have the distinction of making celebrities out of ordinary people and
virtual unknowns. In a glamorous but competitive world of showbiz, reality TV opened
more opportunities for young people to realize their dreams of personal success and class
mobility (Tolentino 2001). This, of course, comes with a prize. If most established actors
and actress are rocked by controversies only after their entry into showbusiness,
contestants who take part in reality TV shows actually become popular through the public
revelation of their lives, as they remain in the show week after week, and, for some, even
after they get eliminated. Here we find how gossipthe personal made publicbecomes
instrumental rather than just incidental to ones entry into the elite world of showbiz.

Game shows are not alien to new developments in TV formatting. Like reality shows
game shows also add a personalistic feature by giving contestants their 15 minutes of
fame Kapamilya5 Deal or No Deal, another franchised local version of the hit
international game show by the makers of Big Brother. The show is hosted by none other
than Kris Aquino.

Gossip and game shows are important TV formats that can be viewed as representative of
the paradox in Philippine culture. While Filipinos welcome the entry in globalized world,
instances of the traditional folkways can be concurrently found in the way foreign
imported or influences television shows are developed (Santos 2001). Gossip shows are
reminiscent of small-town talk that still survives even in the most urbane communities.
Games shows, on the other hand, fulfill the fatalistic beliefs of Filipinos and the
importance of luck (with Gods grace), beliefs that find their way into popular language,
as expressions like bahala na (roughly, Gods will, in reference to the will of Bathala
or God in Filipino). The virtualization of gossip and game shows in contemporary
Philippine TV further extends the contradictory coexistence of globalization and tradition

5
Kapamilya is a term attributed to someone who is a member of the family, by blood or by association,
relation. The root word is pamilya; in English, family. Kapamilya is also the mother station ABS-CBN
channel 2s newest promotional logo, to rival GMA channel 7s kapuso, a nativized term attributed to a
loved one or someone close to one heart. The root word is puso, or heart in English.

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(Santos 2001), creating broader networks of participation, and in effect new forms of
ritualized engagement (Couldry 2003).

Kris Unbound: The Rise of a Celebrity

Kris Aquinos career is typical and extraordinary. Typical in that the only way to
maintain star power is to penetrate all media types in the fields of advertising and
broadcasting. As a major multi-media celebrity in Philippine showbiz, she holds a unique
position as a progeny of the genteel, old elite whose entry into show business is a product
of a perfect marriage of politics and commerce. She began her career at the time her
mother, then president Corazon C. Aquino, was at the height of power following the
famed People Power revolution that ousted Ferdinand Marcos. Corazon Aquino herself
has her popularity derived from her slained husband, then senator Benigno Ninoy
Aquino, Jr. a staunch opposition to the Marcos dictatorship. Undoubtedly, Kris owes her
stardom in part to her fathers popularity as well.

Media scholar Rolando Tolentino (2001, 115) relates how Kris Aquino, the prominent
showbiz personality, is a product carefully orchestrated by the Aquino administration
and Lily Monteverde more popularly known as Mother Lily producer of a high-
grossing production company, Regal Films. The contract signing, in fact, was done in
Malacanang.

Rolando Tolentino however was severely skeptical of Kris Aquinos stardom. In his
essay on the cultural construction of Kris, he notes how the actress fame rested and for
awhile seemed reliant on her status as daughter of the president. In terms of talent, her
early career seemed to suggest so. The teenage Kris racked the tills with a series of
comedy films, starring alongside the late Rene Requiestas. Her debut in Pido Dida films
did not require a lot of acting prowess, but the tandem of a rich girl who runs away from
her family and a poor vendor clicked well with the viewing public. After the success of
Pido Dida, Kris attempted to venture into more serious acting, starring in a string of
massacre films, tacky films based on real-life stories of victims of heinous crimes. Her
acting received poor reviews and the films failed to deliver the numbers. This period of
decline made Tolentino suggest that Kris career seems to follow the trajectory of her
mothers popularity, and as such is doomed to fall under national amnesia (121). Like
her mothers administration, whose stubborn pro-US bases/US government stance made
her unpopular among Filipinos, Tolentino foresees Kris stardom as bound by the same
predicament, for her career essentially rides on the precarious short-term memory of the
movie-going public. Yet he also contends that since Kris is more ambitious than her
mother, she is well aware of such possibility, prompting a reinvention of her showbiz
career. In the mid-1990s, Kris began hosting TV talk shows similar to the hugely
successful US-based show, Oprah. This format allowed Kris greater interaction with
ordinary Filipinos (women in particular), and attracted a strong following.

Tolentinos prediction was correct in some respects. Kris reviving her career as talk
show host successfully postponed the so-called collective amnesia. The viewing
public never seemed to grow tired of the gutsy, talkative Kris who speaks kolehiyala

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English, a kind of code-switching of English and Filipino appropriated by middle class
and elite people, usually from prestigious private schools. But Tolentino failed to predict
how such migration into television and reinvention of image would be the key to Kris
Aquinos unstoppable stardom. Her success in the TV medium, first as talk show host,
then as gossip show host and later as host of game shows would amplify and sustain her
celebrity power.

Reality Kris: The public staging of marital woes

In his analysis of Kris Aquinos star power, Tolentino points out how the ambivalent
status of a gossip talk show host can be interesting, if not powerful: The host can be the
purveyor of gossip at a time when she is not being talked about (121). As one of the co-
hosts of ABS-CBNs talks show The Buzz, Kris ability to switch positions yet still work
her charms to redirect attention to herself when interviewing another showbiz personality
is in fact a powerful gesture that commands the attention of the viewing public. As a
quintessential TV personality, her celebrity transcends her hosting abilities, her show
being used as vehicle to intensify the drama of her personal, particularly domestic life.

Her relationship or marital troubles always carry undying themes of love, trust, betrayal,
the importance of marriage and family. Yet this narrative is performed in a mediated
environment, produced by the media apparatus and witnessed by audiences in various
locations who may or may not know each other. In that sense, the celebrity may have
blurred the traditional private/public divide, a possibility that may be more problematic
than enabling.

A major aspect of Kris Aquinos performance is the use of the image of the victim, the
underdog, or the martyr. Filipinos who are avid fans of traditional dramatic soap or
telenovela are always fond of the underdog, a fondness that stems from the folk Catholic
belief on the value of Christian suffering6. In the case of Kris, this image is also fueled by
the words of comfort from her mother, Cory Aquino: Kris, I know its so hard, but who
hasnt suffered in this world? Suffering, particularly its embodiment and performance in
media platforms, engages the gossip-hungry public.

In the traditional soap narrative, suffering is brought upon the victim by characters with
ill intentions. In the case of Kris, however, public scrutiny is perceived as pressure, if not
a threat to her marital relations. As she struggles to hold on to the marriage, she also
admits wanting to give up because of public criticism. In an interview, she turns to her
husband James Yap she says: Ano kaya kung maghiwalay na (lang) tayo, baka tigilan na
nila tayo? (What if we break up and then maybe they will leave us alone?) Although
Kris believes that only she and her husband can truly decide the fate of their marriage, the
antagonistic attitude suggests that the public, by their very engagement may also ruin the
celebrityor so Kris believes. Here we can see that there is a kind of dialectical dynamic
between celebrity and audience, each with corresponding valuations of another. Her

6
While the victim is to be pitied, her suffering, like Christ, would eventually make her successful or
triumphant, or else lead to her salvation.

9
statements though may serve to recall the trend in her early showbiz career that relies
heavily on public perception. Public perception is one again evoked in this case.

Kris quite understands the suffering or victim image, which not only has a social function
but also cast in the wicked workings of media industries. At some point she makes it
explicit that her real enemies are those that take advantage of the difficult situation, while
projecting herself as a Christ-like figure, a victim of profit-driven network wars
between GMA 7 and ABS-CBN 2: Just because kakumpitensiya (ako), iku-crucify nila
ako. Hindi ko kasalanan na successful ako. (Just because I belong to the rival channel
they crucify me. Its not my fault Im successful.) This she uttered when Hope appeared
and confessed in GMAs Startalk.

Further expanding the reach of the victim image, Kris expresses quite painfully how she
believes the nation witnesses her misery: Pinagdadaanan [namin] ito habang ang buong
Pilipinas nakatutok sa [amin] at 'yong masama ang intensyon ay pinagpipyestahan ang
kalungkutan na pinagdadanaan [namin]. (We are going through this while the entire
country watches, and those with ill intentions feast upon our grief.)

Gossip and the function of celebrity

The social function of celebrity is largely founded on gossip. Gossip, according to

Turner, is understood as an important social process through which relationships,
identity, and social and cultural norms are debated, evaluated, modified and shared. The
celebritys role is the site of interrogation and elaboration of cultural identity. In the
context of Philippine society, however, gossip has a subversive character; it may work as
a counter-register to the operations of the nation (Tolentino - ). Vicente Rafael further
elaborates: The circulation of rumor (like gossip) calls forth an anonymous and
ephemeral community of hearers and speakers joined by the common imaginings of
scenarios that might otherwise remain hidden or unknown (2000). The community that
Rafael speaks of should be regarded as illusory, in the sense that gossip offers no basis
for actual (political, national) identification.

Surprisingly, reactions in support of or against Kris Aquino seem to lean towards the
former view. The idea of gossip as a site for evaluating social and cultural norms is
somehow evinced in the following comment Di mo kelangan na sirain ang isang tao at
tirahin ng personal ng dahil lang sa rating games na yan. Mga Pilipino pano tayo aasenso
kung naghihilahan tayo pababa. Kung successful man si Kris just give her credit. Sa mga
naiinggit magtrabaho kayo para umasenso kayo. [You dont need to malign or put to
shame the person just because of some ratings game. Fellow Filipinos, how can we
accomplish anything when we pull each other down. If Kris is successful, just give her
[the] credit. To those who are envious, just do your job to succeed.]. The reaction calls
attention to negative behaviors that hinder national development, suggesting how are the
imaginative desires as forged by celebrity power still manages to finds its way into real
national life, which apparently is a flawed reality.

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Additionally, gossip circulating about the Kris Aquino-James Yap saga tends to be not
wholly ephemeral. While it is difficult to locate the ethical basis of gossip, gossip may be
used to affirm conventional ethical norms and condemn the excesses of the scandal-
embroiled celebrity in her bid to win sympathy. One comment goes: The message is
crystal clear that you simply CAN'T have everything in this world... you may use your
wealth, prestige and influences but the respect and admirationfrom the Filipino
community will no longer (exist)You have fooled (us) all these years from your
nonstop gimmicks and attention seeking (tactics).

Deal and no deal: the fulfillment and non-fulfillment of desire

Kris Aquinos celebrity power enjoins the public to channel their desiredesire for a
success, social mobility, for a sense of nationhoodin a path of identification however
virtual. Because the reality of public or civic life is severely flawed and debilitated by the
semi-feudal, semi-colonial conditions, the public tends to turn to more lofty sources of
pleasure. For ordinary low-income Filipinos, television is an affordable source of
pleasure and a fulfillment of desire. Such desire7 however, is strangely problematic, for
desire operates not in pursuit of the attainment of desire but a perpetual and persistent
wanting of the object. Thus, even though the public more or less sees the artificiality of
identification with Kris Aquino the celebrity, and there is nothing in the engagement in
her shows that would actually change, say, corruption in government or keep elections
clean. Yet if they take a chance, the public knows that such engagement would also bring
them luck in alleviating their personal conditions or circumstances.

The virtual identification that the celebrity beckons its adoring public is also powerful in
that it fulfills a sense of imaginary community. Intimacy can be shared with the celebrity,
as with fellow viewers, yet this intimacy is also understood as ephemeral, transitory,
artificial. At some certain points there are indeed actual fulfillments: A contestant
could become an instant millionaire just by being chosen to play in Kapamilya Deal or
No Deal, a franchise game show on primetime TV. A lucky home partner/texter could
win half as much. Avid fans of Kris Aquino, the game show host, who get to interact in
blogs and fansites online may choose to meet in real time and under actual circumstances.
Yet there is no guarantee how far PHP 3 million could go once spent, or how authentic
offline relationships would become. This is how desire perfectly works--by constantly
creating this desire, placing temporary coordinate points (Zizek 1989) without necessary
leading the way to actualization.

At the helm of the economy of desire is Kris Aquino, who has the star power to decide
which shows she can forego and which ones she can accept even under the auspices of
her mother studio, ABS-CBN. Her power is intensified as game show host, beginning
with Pilipinas Game KNB and now with Kapamilya Deal or No Deal. She weaves the
dreams of game show hopefuls, inspiringrather, urging the contestants to go for the
PHP 3 millionGalingan mo! (Give it your best!) being her favorite expression in
the show, urging the contestant to choose the right briefcases, even if its only a game of

7
My elementary understanding and conceptualization of desire is largely derived from psychoanalytic
theories, especially the ideas of Lacan and Zizek.

11
luck. Interestingly, the contestants seem to respond even prior to her urges. As the game
transpires, some contestants would reveal or tend to reveal their strategyhowever
unscientific or primitive. Contestants may choose briefcases to be eliminated, or for the
win, based on the personal significance of the numbers. Some rely on dreams and visions.
But the most popular strategy is the invocation of divine intervention by Deal or No Deal
millionaire Jerhan Mama-o (Episode 63, 5 September 2007). When he picked out his
briefcase for the win, he exclaimed, I trust Allah has something for me. I know P2M is
here!

Kris Aquinos performance as talk show host inspires but nonetheless continues to
command presence. Such commanding presence is reinforced by her social background
(Tolentino 2000), a fact carefully concealed by her popularity as a prominent television
personality. As a scion of the illustrious Cojuangco family, owners of large tracks of
land, communication networks and other interests (Manapat 1991). Hacienda Luisita, a
large land holding that employs thousands of workers and their families owned by the
family of former president Aquino. The property has since been riddled with controversy,
including the failure of then-President Aquino to institute the comprehensive agrarian
reformagainst the interests of her powerful siblings. Because of her elite background, it
is not surprising to find Kris Aquino correcting contestants faulty English pronunciation,
embarrassing them in the process. She can also get away with irreverent opinions
(Tolentino 2000) and rather uncouth remarks. At the height of the Hacienda Luisita
Massacre, in which several members of a group of oppressed and depraved workers and
their families waged a strike were gunned down by police and military men, who were
dispatched by the landowners to disperse the picket, Kris Aquino boasted on national
TV that her designer clothes were made out of the katas ng Hacienda Luisita an
expression suggesting the blood and sweat of the farmer-serfs in their hacienda (Palatino
2004). Such patronizing statements in effect indemnifying the pains of the oppressed
workers who are producing wealth (Palatino 2004) and sustaining it for the Aquinos.

Celebrity in the age of virtuality

If celebrity power is largely based on its being a source of gossip then Kris iconic power
can be misleading. The performance of the domestic, the stuff of gossip, forges a kind of
intimacy that may be lacking in formal political institutions. It doesnt matter what the
truth is; gossip allows participation of just about anyone, however superficial. It makes
the public privy to the private life of a celebrity who has just about everythingwealth,
beauty, and power. Gossip is a respite from the alienating public sphere in which
governing institutions have ceased to be credible and authentic.

The public interest that Kris Aquino is able to summon may be read as a sense of
nostalgia expressed by a disaggregated nation. In a country burdened by a mangled
economy, a controversial presidency, and inefficient leadership, the public is wont to vote
for their favorite Starstruck finalist than vote in the national elections. The collective
witness to a celebritys life unfolding in the TV screen, soap-opera style, may be argued
as a repressed wish to achieve some imagined nation that seems to have lost faith in, if
not cynical about its democratic institutions. With every outbreak of her private affairs,

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Kris Aquino intermittently brings people together through a public outpouring of interest,
sympathy, and contempt.

Yet the public attention beckoned by the celebrity also further reinforces the exclusion of
the masa or the masses. It leads them away from pressing social issues; for example, the
Hacienda Luisita massacre that reminds the public of the overt and structural violence
borne out of gangrenous class relations between the wealthy and the poor. The power of
the celebrity serves to conceal the societys realpolitik, as it engineers the desires of the
public that can only be found in televisual entertainment. The celebrity enables such
desires to endure, even as the civic culture continues to deteriorate under semi-feudal,
semi-colonial conditions maintained by the Filipino elite.

The power of Kris Aquino the celebrity functions to preserve the status quo in Philippine
social life by captivating audiences and keeping them in virtual, artificialbut not
necessarily superficialrelations with a celebrity. One can only see the intense irony in a
situation where a game show host showers bountiful cash money for ordinary people who
hope to become rich, which includes PHP500-peso bills bearing the image of Ninoy
Aquino, her late father, former senator and celebrated national hero whose death is
synonymous to the EDSA revolution in the public mind.

The illusory intimacy, whether in terms of love, hate, anger, contempt, admiration, that
the celebrity conjures up is quite powerful; it permeates cultural and social life. It is easy
to dismiss celebrity culture as another capitalist ploy to dumb down the public. But as
more politicians evoke the power of celebrity in myriad of ways, inviting actors to run in
their ticket or dancing to the popular novelty song Itaktak Mo (Shake It) to earn votes,
and as more celebrities cross-over into politics, the cultural malaise that Kris Aquino
embodies deserves unbridled scrutiny.

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