Anjo for Senate

Anjo Yllana. Used to be an actor. Small-time. Never the star, never the main event. Eat Bulaga, Beh Bote Nga. Sometimes funny. Mostly filler. The guy you notice only when the camera pans away from talent and you go “O, there’s Anjo.”

He’s the extra in a sitcom who dramatically trips over and hopes the director notices. Now he’s tripping in public, pledging allegiance to the Dutertes, thinking, “This is my moment!” No, it’s not your moment, Anjo. Your moment was in a show nobody watched.

Suddenly, suddenly, Anjo decides the Senate is a career path. Everybody moved on from Eat Bulaga but him. It’s grief.

Guy spent his life making people laugh, now thinks he can make people vote?

Wrong.

Fame plus the right friend’s clout equals votes. The right friend is the presidentiable, queen, top of the heap. You want to succeed? Don’t merely be known. Get attached. Find the presidentiable, the winning horse, the person people already are willing to die for. That’s your shortcut.

That friend can be Sara Duterte. Anjo wants to ride her coattails to Congress because she’s No. 1.

I don’t think Anjo understands what No. 1 means. He probably thought: “Maybe I can borrow some of that magic.” You cannot borrow greatness, lease fame, hitch behind someone who is, frankly, a living legend, without looking like the desperate has-been you are.

We have to be honest to Anjo. Sara doesn’t have time for people like him or to negotiate with mediocrity. Or make room for the forgotten actors who think a Senate seat is a consolation prize for failing at being famous.

And, get this, Anjo says he’s a fan. Let’s tell Anjo something very important. Being a fan is nice. Being a fan does not make you relevant. Or qualified. It certainly does not make you anything close to Sara.

She doesn’t need fans. Or anybody who thinks being a fan translates to a mandate from the Filipino people, let alone the DDS.

Anjo proves his loyalty in public by attacking the veep’s enemies, even calling on Bongbong to hand over the presidency. Stop. Think. Seriously? Does this man understand what rules are? Constitution?

You can’t resurrect a dead career by shouting at the President. Yet he goes live, looking all serious, looking like he has all the bombs, probably thinking he’s the next big deal.

He performed the lines. Things across Bongbong’s legendary left-right-left-right. The jaw. Moving left, moving right, left, right.

We see it in interviews, we see it on TV, then imagine it in private. Bongbong practicing it in the mirror. Left, right, left, right. Amazing technique. Then it locked! Mid-left, mid-right. He panicked. The jaw! TMJ! The President! The country’s leader, suddenly wrestling with his own face.

Suddenly, a conspiracy theory. “Could be cocaine,” they say. And somehow, the public insists it’s a crime.

The real crime is not the jaw. It’s Anjo paying attention to it for three hours, and still getting ignored.

The danger is a man who once got applause and can’t live without it. The real crime is the tiny, trembling tragedy of failed actors who assume public office is a stage for redemption.