First of two parts

“Since Senators Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. and Jinggoy Estrada are hogging the headlines now,” wrote Dolly Anne Carvajal in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on June 30, “I thought of asking celebs how the beleaguered lawmakers’ arrest might impact other actors who would like to join politics.” That this was a natural question to occur to Carvajal and that the “actor-politician” is a normative category in the Philippines should give us pause.