When Judy Ann and electricity fail to mix Katrina Stuart Santiago Philippine Daily Inquirer
June 15, 2008
MANILA, Philippines - Much may be said about the present controversy that Judy Ann Santos is embroiled in, appearing as she has as the voice of Meralco, to spread what the electric company insists are just “facts” about their services.
At any other time, we might shrug this off as just another commercial with another celebrity; but this happens in the midst of Senate hearings on runaway power rates. It also happens at a time when things don’t look all rosy and peachy between Judy Ann and her “mother studio,” ABS-CBN, a company also owned by the Lopezes, who own Meralco. The network earlier decided to give its Star Cinema movie, “When Love Begins,” the same playdate as the actress’ indie movie “Ploning.”
Judy Ann’s appearance in the Meralco advertisement first came across to us as a coming home, a signal specifically to this writer, as a scholar of her life and work, that she was forgiving the Lopezes for whatever ill feelings she might have harbored for their refusal to support her first co-production effort.
It also proved our theory that Judy Ann has become that one star who has redefined the use of celebrity endorsers in advertisements. In her commercials, her private persona has been referred to more than her being an actress. Her personal joys and successes have become testament to various products for cooking (since she became chef), slimming down (since she became thin), womanhood (since she achieved “ideal” womanhood). Her “credibility” in these endorsements has been premised on her as a person who has triumphed over the odds, even if it’s just excess poundage.
Perspective
In this context, the power company ad is no different. It banks on her credibility as a person, someone who responsibly chooses the products she endorses and, of late, the movie she decides to spend her time and money on. The second of the commercial’s two versions even employs a first person perspective. Judy Ann says in her spiel about Meralco’s innocence in rising power charges: “’Yan ang basa ’ko. Tingnan mo sa bill mo. Maliwanag.” This practically erases the perception that Judy Ann is just a talent reading a script.
What has Judy Ann done wrong by speaking for Meralco? She has, after all, sold practically everything.
Simply said, it is the fact that the truth she sells in the hotly contested ad is unlike any of the truths she declares in her other endorsements. In selling vinegar or ginisa mix, feminine wash and shampoo, laundry detergents and plastic ware, beer and diet pills, one can suspend belief and say, yes, those products may have worked for her, if not necessarily for others.
In selling the premise that Meralco has done no wrong to its consumers, that it only follows the law, and has in fact desisted from raising certain other charges through the years, there is little room for suspension of disbelief, no possibility of this being true for her but not for the rest of the populace. Everyone pays the same electric bill.
Maybe Judy Ann should rethink this campaign because she is, in fact, trying to sway public opinion about a highly-contested political matter, by using her credibility as an ordinary citizen who’s supposedly seeing the truth in her electric bill.
Truth is, she is no ordinary person; nor is Meralco a “product” that’s easy to sell at this point, which is why they needed Judy Ann to begin with. In truth, there is so much more to our high electric bills than just System Loss and other charges. What the power company says through Judy Ann may be true, but what it subliminally asserts—that it has done consumers no wrong—is, naturally, aggravating the public.
With Judy Ann Santos putting herself out there for that claim, we need not wonder about its effect on her mass audience, the very people who are suffering the most for the electricity they consume to watch her TV shows.
Small sacrifice
Since a retraction seems to be a lot to ask at this crucial point (unless she’s ready to leave her nest that is ABS-CBN), then at the very least, maybe Judy Ann should confess to knowing too little about the issue, or to being unaware of the other truths that the ad doesn’t allow to surface.
That could prove to be a really small sacrifice, in order to keep her devoted fans.
