In Philippine election, a reel thin line between actors and politicians

It seemed like a good idea at the time. With retired national police chief Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa running for senator in May, surely his career as a tough, take-no-prisoners crimebusting cop would make a great action movie?

Have popular star Robin Padilla play the title role, keep the bullets flying, throw in some coy romantic comedy, and audiences would lap it up – incidentally doing dela Rosa’s ballot chances a power of good. “Know the man,” the trailer promised.

After all, dela Rosa had been President Rodrigo Duterte’s right hand man for years and played a key role in the administration’s signature “war on drugs” – a campaign that, despite having claimed the lives of thousands of people since its launch in 2016, has struck a chord with some sections of the Philippine public.

But when Bato premiered on January 30, it didn’t just bomb, it evaporated. As audiences avoided the film like the plague, nilangaw (Tagalog for “so desultory, only flies attended”) became the buzzword. For a week, people on social media gleefully shared photos of empty theatres screening the film.

Critics were quick to turn the knife, some suggesting that clips showing a thin and muscular Padilla aping the bald, well-fed dela Rosa stretched suspension of disbelief to breaking point, while Esquire Philippines said “the tough-talking, shoot-everything-that-moves rhetoric of the Bato we all know is notably absent”.

As website 8list.ph put it: “The good news is, watching Bato will not convince you to vote for him. Not in a million years. The bad news is, you STILL watched Bato.”