AlDub, #BinayBwisitsUPLB

  Ah, politics and TV. Our household does not have a TV with channels (we don't have cable), but having the internet is basically the same thing.
  I was surprised that a LOT of my age group (based on Facebook--it's kinda troubling how much I rely on Facebook to know what people my age are thinking, it's like saying I don't interact with people that much) are into AlDub. I did a little "research" with a friend who was as clueless as I was about this sensation that has recently swept the nation. We watched an episode of it. We weren't hooked, and went back to playing Smash Brothers for the rest of the afternoon.
  Wait, I've been going off tangent here. What I meant to say was that my Facebook feed for the past week consisted mostly of two things: AlDub and Binay's visit to UPLB.
   Lately, I've been feeling like there are three groups of people on my 'friends' list in Facebook: those who love AlDub, those who think it's unfashionable (baduy!), and those who simply don't care about it. While not being a fan, I think those who proclaim that AlDub and its followers are baduy are unnecessarily harsh. What might appeal to people might not to others. Is it uncool because it's not a show staged in the States? Because if this was Glee, and you were geeking out about it on social media, it wouldn't be considered baduy. Different strokes for different folks.

  Once again, social media made its power felt when news of VP Binay's forum at UPLB circulated via Facebook posts and Twitter live feeds from the event itself. UP students were, in turns, praised for their hard-hitting questions, and criticized for their "rudeness". Binay's PR and the local news stations (hi there, ABS-CBN!) had a ball with this. Instead of a corrupt politician siphoning our taxes away, he was presented as a politician who humbly attended a forum at a university and was shamed by rude students. The appeal to the soft side of human nature has never been clearer--at least, if the Vice President's PR has anything to say about it. People vilified the students who asked the VP those "rude" questions, and those who were affected fired back, saying that Binay was someone who knew exactly how to trigger sympathy even when he was under fire for something he was accountable for.
  Then again, life gives you different perspectives on an issue. I saw a post by someone who said that, while approving of the grilling Binay underwent at the forum, he saw how people would still vote for him. They're not stupid, those people who will back Binay. They are people who are the poorest of the poor, who only had food to line their bellies with that day because this politician gave them some. Recall Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I consider myself fortunate to be someone who eats 2-3 square meals a day, and in turn am able to focus on matters other than my grumbling stomach. But can our other fellow Filipinos say the same? No, they won't. They'll remember the guy who gave them fast food in appetizing cartons, evidence of corruption be damned.
  Can we blame them and patronize them for their "lack of education", sneering down upon them as if we are little gods?