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What is this for?

Although elections, particularly for the presidential position, is of national concern, candidates campaign to only a strategically chosen group of society. Reasons for choosing one group over another varies per candidate, but ultimately it is for a streamlined and more effective communications strategy. Through their advertisements, candidates’ campaigns are orchestrated towards a specific group they want to cater (or pander) to. Voter construction then happens in that although a candidate’s top goal is to represent the entire nation in its diversity, his campaigns give an idea of who exactly are the people he aims to give voice to.

Wardrobe, jingles and slogans are just some of the minute ways candidates campaign to their chosen audience. Using the television advertisements of the 2016 Philippine presidentiables, this study then aims to find out through visual and aural analysis who the target voters of the candidates are. Working backwards, these will determine the reasons for the candidates’ choices, and what makes them similar or different from the others. In so doing, a better understanding of their platforms and marketing standpoints can be achieved.

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Mass media has been politically significant since the advent of mass literacy and popular press in the late nineteenth century (Heywood, 2013). Because of continuous social and technological changes, the media become increasingly powerful political actors. By its very nature, media are primary mechanisms through which information about issues, policies and political choices are presented to the public. Their political influence is thus massive in being able to control how and what pieces of information are disseminated to society. 

How media are used as conduits for political agendas is especially evident during campaign seasons. In national elections, especially for the presidential bid, candidates get creative in trying to appeal to the voting populace. According to Krasno and Green (2007), television campaign advertising is “a staple of modern political campaigns”, usually the first choice tactic of candidates and the most visible sign of activity for the electorate.

With the population being comprised of diverse sets of people, candidates focus their campaigning to a specific group in order to be more effective. Reasons for choosing a specific sector over another varies per candidate. Key (1966) stated, however, that the candidate’s perception on the part of the population whom he thinks as having the high tendencies to vote in his favor is a vital part of the campaign strategy. As such although candidates’ commercials concern all citizens and eligible voters, they are actually targeted towards a desired group only. A construction of the voter then takes place. As Hart and Johnson (1999) discussed, the analysis of the construction of the voters is central to any political project because through this, the voters gain an affirmation of “we” and the community establishes some sense of identity which is key for the society to have a political will.

In this paper, how the television campaign advertisements of the 2016 Philippine presidential candidates construct their target voters would be determined through visual and aural analysis. It would look at the given characteristics of the target voters and based on that, it would identify who are the target voters for this campaigns. Furthermore, the paper would look at the possible reasons why these target voters are constructed that way.

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Related Studies on Voter Construction and Political Media

Significance of Media in Campaigning

Voters see dwelling with matters of elections translating to less leisure time; so, they absent themselves from such political discourse because they believe that their single vote could only do so much anyway (Stanley, 1962). If campaigns are aired in mass media, Stanley argues that the media “dramatize elections, emphasizing [the people’s] elements of conflict, their uncertainties, [and] the personal fortunes that ride on their outcomes” (Stanley, 1962) to let the audiences hold on to their seats while watching TV instead of jumping to another channel.

Cundy (1993, as quoted by Encabo, 2010) argues how “politicians and advertisement producers believe that advertising allows candidates to reach even the uninterested and unmotivated citizens like those who are not paying attention in news reports, debates, and other campaign events”. Encabo (2010) argues that “Since the presidentiables are people who are respected in the country and perceived as very formal people, a wall between them and the voters is present.” Through advertising strategies, the wall is broken. The advertiser will create another image of the candidate to make them appreciated and accepted by the target audience. Both Encabo and Cundy further considered the interest and culture of the target audience/voter like the social class of the people in the ad, the language, the songs used, the clothes of the people, the symbolic colors, the location, and the issues to discuss. The representation of people’s age, gender, profession and religion are very useful for the ads’ recall as well.

McCombs (2004) mentioned that not only does media enable people to know the basics about current events but they dictate as well the valuing society should put on particular issues. A concrete example is the layout of the newspaper. Which news make it to the front page, which gets the banner headline, and which articles occupy the littlest space in the paper and also in the minds of readers? Clearly, media influence society.

Political Marketing

According to Levy and Kotler (1969), in addition to economic products and services, the concept of marketing is applicable to the marketing of persons, organizations and ideas. This was affirmed by Reeve (2010) in his study on political marketing strategies which asserts that since the world is marketing dominated, the electorate has come to expect politics to be conducted from a marketing perspective. Society is brand-driven. This means people’s choices about their commercial consumption behavior may replicate itself subconsciously into their political choices. Campaigns are ideologically-driven and sales-oriented. (Reeves, 2009)

According to Ashram (1975), there is a clear link between consumer behavior and voter behavior and how each is influenced similarly by various concepts. (See: Table 1)

What may seem as just a general plan to please everybody is actually a product of careful market research and analysis, from the preparations down to the slogans, speeches and even attire. Marketing concepts are just as necessary in elections as in business.

Visual Communication

In 2012, Dan Schill published his study on visual communication in political communication, with emphasis on how visual symbols and images function in political contexts. In the context of politics, Schill elaborates that "a single photograph can have a clear impact on voters' judgments regarding a candidate's congressional demeanor, competence, integrity, etc."

According to Schill, there are ten functions of visuals in politics, one of which is the image-building function, wherein "the visual image can construct the political image". These visual images provide "heuristic cues" about a candidate's background and personality which directly shapes that candidate's image. For example, politicians may want to portray themselves as "ordinary" by appearing in casual clothes and interacting with regular citizens and disadvantaged sectors of society, or perhaps they may want people to perceive them as "compassionate" by appearing with families, children, or even religious symbols. Another function mentioned by Schill is the identification function, where "pictures are uniquely equipped to create identification, or perceived similarity, between politicians and audiences." The effect of this is quite strong because "the more a person identifies with a source, the more power that source has to influence the person."

On the other hand, Lipsitz, Trost, Grossmann and Sides say that people "prefer campaign communication that is informative, comprehensive, and focused on the issues that matter most to the voters." They also tackle the various factors (aside from political involvement) that matter with regards to public opinion in campaigns. These factors include gender, ethnicity, and age. Lipsitz, et.al, also write that the respondents in their survey prefer stands on issues, character, experience, and intelligence with regards to the content of campaign communication.

Issue and Image Priming

Based on a study conducted by John Kingdon, voters choose their politicians based on their specific stands on issues and their personality. And as such, the voters seem to be less concerned with the party affiliations of the candidates. This finding of Kingdon was in support of surveys which state that a smaller number of people are engaged and interested in extensive political discussions and rely more on matters that are easily seen. Thus, their votes are highly based on their image of the candidates and who among them focus on the most relevant and immediate issues for the voters. This specificity in focusing on specific issues as a basis for the voter's’ choice is supported by Druckman and Miller.

In Druckman and Miller’s Political Psychology of Electoral Campaigns, “priming” on specific issues instead of tackling all issues is a more strategic campaign approach because it significantly influences the decisions of the voters. As such, learning how to frame issues is very essential in political campaigns.

This claim was supported further by Petrocik, Benoit, and Hansen in their study of Issue Ownership and Presidential Campaigning. In this study, their theoretical framework was based on the Issue Ownership Theory wherein they argue that politicians focus and prime on issues that are of high concern for their electorate to gather their support and votes. Petrocik et.al argued that what voters want is to have candidates who can “fix” their problems. And as such, these politicians focus their campaigns on issues that can directly affect the voters. With this, it is seen that “performance-driven reputations” are less persuasive to voters than “constituency-based issues” that are inclusive of the necessities of the people rather than merely emphasizing on the politician’s capabilities.

Voter Construction

Hart and Johnson (1999) provided ideas on how to approach the analysis of the construction of the voters during electoral campaigns. This was done through the examination of how the political campaigners during the American Presidential elections between the years 1948 to 1996 constructed their target electorate in their campaign materials. The importance of the analysis of the construction of the voters and its centrality to any political project is that the survival of any society depends on the affirmation of “we” and for a community to articulate itself as a community and for a community to assemble a political will, there is a need for these kind of rhetorical constructions.

Rational Expectations Equilibrium

Granato and Wong in Political Campaign Advertising Dynamics affirms the claim of Druckman et al. on how political campaigns influence voters’ decision-making although through other units of analysis namely voter expectations and the voters ability to discern the true policy view and personal traits of a candidate and the candidate’s campaign strategy. A quantitative method of analysis was used in this research paper. The findings was that political campaigns do give significant influences on voters but it diminishes as time passes by because the voters acquire sufficient information through time and help them achieve crystallization where voters reach the “rational expectations equilibrium.

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How did we do this?

In analyzing the campaign materials of the presidential candidates, a semiotic approach will be adapted. Semiology is the study of signs and meanings of language and communication. Similar to the science of Linguistics, semiology also deals with the study of the contexts and structures of communication and how it relates to the society. As described by Roland Barthes, semiology is focused on explaining the significance of specific elements of language and communication. It does not simply deal with the superficiality of the text but, more importantly, the underlying values behind it.

Roland Barthes discussed semiology by describing its three important elements: a signifier, a signified, and a sign. The signifier is the object of language and communication that aims to express and represent the signified. The signified is the thing itself, and it contains the meaning which people try to understand through the signifier. The sign is the total interpretation of the meaning of the language based on the relationship of the signifier and the signified.

Such an approach will be the main technique used in analyzing the different elements and symbols in the commercial advertisements of the presidential candidates in the 2016 Presidential Elections. The researchers will not only look into their literal meanings but also give in-depth significance and values to these objects in the attempt to describe how these construct every candidate’s image of their voters.

Marketing starts with research on the voting public, but since most of that goes on behind the scenes, this study aims to work backwards. From the platforms and promotional materials, the target market can be determined and each candidate’s reason for choosing that market can be conjectured. The methods used by the researchers are expounded in the following paragraphs.

A. Research Method This study utilized visual and aural analysis. It looked into the different campaign materials of the presidential candidates of the 2016 presidential elections to extract the representation of Filipino voters by each candidate. Specifically, it focused on how the characters were visibly portrayed in the campaign materials, as well as the language used in them. B. Sampling Method This study will use non-probability and judgment or purposive sampling. C. Sampling Frame The sampling frame of this study are the political advertisements of Philippine presidential candidates in the recently-concluded 2016 national elections that are in video format of any length and uploaded through their official social media accounts and/or aired on national TV.

Since premature campaigning is prevalent in the Philippines especially during national elections, the team decided to include the premature campaign materials in the sampling frame as long as those political ads were still aired during the official campaign period (February 9 to May 7, 2016) set by the Commission on Elections.

D. Samples The samples of this study are the first and last official video advertisements of the presidential candidates of the 2016 presidential elections which were aired before and during the official campaign period. As much as possible, only the ones produced by the staff/campaign team of the candidates were considered; however, ads endorsed by the campaign team was taken into account as well for some candidates who had little to no official television advertisements. The first and last videos of each candidate’s campaigns were chosen for analysis because: (1) Due to time constraints, it was impossible for the group to analyze all the campaign materials, and (2) The materials allowed for comparisons to be made between the voters the candidates were trying to appeal to at the start of the campaign period and to those at the end.

E. Unit of Analysis This study focused on two units of analysis.

1. The Actor Particularly, these roles of the actor/s were scrutinized:

Projected Job

Projected Socioeconomic Status

Language Used

2. The Setting Special attention was given to the following details of the setting:

Time of the Day

Location/s

Infrastructures/Background

F. Methods of Data Gathering In gathering the materials to analyze, the first step done was a survey of all the campaign materials from the candidates’ social media accounts. Second, the dates when the media were uploaded and aired on television were noted. Third, the videos that fulfilled the qualifications set above were reviewed. Finally, the units of analysis were deconstructed by answering the following questions and indicators:

Who are the characters present in the political ads? For the purposes of this study, what qualify as characters are names of jobs (driver, teacher, engineer, etc.), tambay, or what they are specifically doing at the political ad (buying something, talking to neighbors, etc.).

What are they wearing?

What was the language used?

Depending on the values above, what are their socioeconomic status?

Where was/were the scene/s shot?

What was/were the setting/s of the political ad?

What time of the day was the ad shot?

G. Data Analysis To analyze the data gathered and to answer who the Filipino voters are, the team answered the following questions:

What can be inferred from the data gathered above?

What kind of people has the candidate’s political advertisement focused on? What can be implied from this?

Who is the Filipino voter according to the candidate? What can be implied from this?

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Jejomar Binay

Binay, always taunted for his dark skin, short stature and alleged corruption, used all the criticisms against him to his advantage. By portraying himself as the victim of poverty, bullying and unfounded accusations, Binay ingratiated himself to the masses of Filipino voters. Analyzed here are the “Only Binay” video jingle and the Bullet Train advertisement -- both of which consistently show Binay as the time-tested, effective, and true representative of the Filipino people. That message begs the question, however: Who is the Filipino anyway? He succinctly answers this in the Bullet Train ad:

Sino ba talagang nagpapahalaga sa buhay natin? Sino ba talagang tumulong at patuloy na tutulong sa atin? Hindi ba yung presidenteng nognog, pandak at laki rin sa hirap ang maghahatid sa atin tungo sa ginhawa?

Jejomar Binay characterized the public -- his target audience -- and projected himself as one of them. He was poor and continues to be downtrodden and wrongfully criticized, just like his target voters. Despite all that, he was able to rise above the circumstances and help his fellow man. He knows the people, he understands them, and he can help them. That is the message.

With the ads emphasizing free services like in health and education given supposedly by Binay, it can be deduced that he is catering to the lower classes, the majority of the population. In all scenes, Binay is surrounded and warmly welcomed particularly by the urban poor.

Actually, both commercials try to somehow catch all the possible voters from the lower class by showing different types of people such as senior citizens, teachers, students, and people with disability. At every point of the video, Binay would take actions to answer their needs like affordable healthcare, education and high quality infrastructures. His use of a campaign jingle is also highly indicative of the kind of market he was trying to appealing to. In line with being memorable and entertaining, the tune was simple, catchy and happy -- possibly hinting at the good life Binay can give.

It is further worth-noting that children are always present in his advertisements. They come as students who have benefitted from his services, as babies being introduced by their parents to Binay, or as children being lovingly carried in the arms of Binay himself. These imageries -- childrens as symbols for innocence and hope -- are associated to Binay as the ultimate sign of the people’s trust in him to take care of society.

This image of hope was expounded on by the use of the bullet train in the second advertisement. Binay, while firmly holding a child in his arms yet again, ushers a poor family to ride this modern development. The use of the train was a great reminder of the horrible metrorail transit system Filipinos have to put up with everyday. This new train allows people to visualize how much of a grand and direct impact Binay can supposedly give to the people in easing their suffering if he is elected president. At the same time, the great speed of the bullet train plus the views the passengers see while on-board the train give the impression of fast development and how bright the future can be with Binay. In terms of the setting, it could be noted both campaign advertisements was always either at dawn or in the morning which could signify hope, new beginnings or change for the audience.

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Rodrigo Duterte

Former Davao City Mayor, and now President-elect Rodrigo Duterte, proclaimed before campaign and election season that because he has no political machinery, the public would serve as his, this in turn led him to say that he would not be directly releasing campaign paraphernalia. This was later on nullified by the release of the following videos.

[NOTICE: The ad starts at 00:24]

In this campaign ad, he used the children as the main characters, showing their happy faces, simple and innocent lifestyle while also hinting on some downsides among the less fortunate. Duterte did not appear in this video personally, only his voice recording was heard saying that he would not let the next administration jeopardize the children’s future. 

With this, it could be implied that he sees the electorate as parents or people who prioritize child welfare. It was also evident that the ad focused on the children belonging in the lower classes, sporting tattered clothes and playing in the streets. The earlier socioeconomic status assumption was based upon merely looking at the appearance and general physique of the children in the ad. There was even one part where two kids were shown in a fish market or beside the seashore, assumed based on the presence of fish tubs and boats in the background. Peripheral characters include an unidentified tricycle driver who happened to drive by in front of the camera and people in a crowd behind Duterte in what looked like a gathering for cancer kids. Most of the parts were filmed during daytime; locations include residential areas, roadsides and the mentioned seaside.

For this second ad, it was bit harder to take a good look at how the voters were represented. The video is a combination of Duterte’s sortie snippets, again backed with his voice recording, but this time his campaign song ‘Duterte Para sa Tunay na Pagbabago’ plays along.

The song starts off the audio singing the lines “Madilim na kahapon, ikaw ang mag-aahon...”, which could imply that the candidate sees the electorate as people who’ve experienced a rather unpleasant government under the last administration and is in dire need for a ‘heroic’ figure.

Aerial shots of the crowd were shown throughout the clip and there were only a few frames where the members of the crowd became distinguishable. For instance, there was a snippet during his sortie in Bohol, showing people wearing casual clothes, with a few male supporters wearing sando tops. There was also one showing the aggregation of his supporters in HK, wearing thick sweaters and scarves around their necks. We took this depiction to mean that the candidate does not restrict his target voters to a certain social status.

Towards the end, the eagerness of the voters were palpable as they were seen reaching out, jumping and taking selfies with Duterte. We chose not to give meaning to this particular behavior for we felt it would be considered speculative. 

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Grace Poe

The first official campaign material of Presidential-candidate Grace Poe was aired on the second week of February. It showed in the different television networks in the Philippines and circulated around social media for a period of time. It focused on introducing Grace Poe as the type of President who “listens” to the needs of the people.

This particular campaign material highlighted the people more than Grace Poe. Unlike some of the other candidates, Grace Poe did not present herself as the center of attention but instead focused on the various voters she wished to appeal to.

In the first clips of the video, it can be noticed how the main subjects of the scenes were the people Grace Poe was addressing. But, it made sure to still include snippets of Grace Poe by including her in a small space of the frame in the lower left corner. This particular placement is important as it emphasized the strategy of Grace Poe as a candidate “for the people and the country”. But by including her as still part of the frame, it also shows that she is always present and ready to listen to the people.

The characters of the people she was talking to were also indicative of the kinds of voters she was appealing to. It can be seen that she was addressing a security guard and a janitress which are among the most common jobs of many Filipinos.  In the middle part of the video, it shows a woman talking to Grace Poe in the streets and a man at a local eatery sharing with Poe his personal needs. Both are representative of the average Filipinos lingering in the common places of the city.

Interestingly, in the latter part of the campaign video, the focus was on Filipino mothers. The following clip shows an elderly woman in her house and was speaking of how mothers will do everything for their children. This was followed by the scene where Grace Poe was conversing with a child and his grandmother in a school campus. The grandmother was telling Grace about the boy’s mother who has been in Hong Kong for many years.

More than the images of the people depicted in video, their dialogues also play an important role in describing Grace Poe’s image of her voters. Collectively, they were expressing their need for better education for their children, regular jobs for them, an uncorrupt government, more attention to the poor, and consistent government benefits. These concerns noticeably coincide with the general program of Grace Poe. It shows how the need of these average, middle to low class Filipinos are in-line with her programs. It allows her to relate with the Filipino masses and tell them through these representations how she can answer their concerns.

The last campaign video of Grace Poe was released in mid-April. Quite interestingly, this particular video sets a different tone compared to her first official advertisement.

The overall mood of this last campaign video was leaning towards a more serious, gloomy setting. The images are evidently darker and projected a  more dramatic environment, contrary to the bright and positive feel of the first campaign video.

Unlike in the first video, Grace Poe was narrating over the clips of women being simultaneously showed. In her narrative, Poe was straightforwardly addressing Filipino women. She expressed concern to why Filipino women are being disrespected, embarrassed, and belittled.

The seriousness of the faces of the Filipino women being shown really depicted the problem Grace Poe was trying to address. It was showing how they were being treated, with oppression and inequality. The campaign material presented the different kinds of Filipino women: the vendors in the markets, the waiters in restaurants, the employees in malls, the homeless mothers, and the house helpers among others.

Looking deeper at the context of this campaign material, it can be noticed how this time was the time in April that her fellow candidate Rodrigo Duterte made insensitive statements against women. Being a contender to Duterte’s top position, Poe took advantage of this event to boost her voters market and refocusing all her attention to all those Filipino women who were violated by Duterte’s statements to hopefully catch and strengthen their support for her.

More than simply showing the situation of the women, Grace Poe clearly made a statement in her narrative by saying that in her type of government, all people will be respected whether they are rich or poor. Yet again, it focuses the general approach of her campaign strategy as a president for all Filipinos, uniting everyone and free from any partisanship or socio-economic division.

Grace Poe’s campaign made it clear that she thought of her voters as those part of the Filipino masses. These are the people who are marginalized and oppressed by the current system. They are the ones impoverished and need immediate help and assistance through jobs, education, and health care. They are the voters who are not found in high-end subdivisions or well-off vicinities, but those that are found in the streets and slum areas of the city. More importantly, she put great focus on Filipino women like her, whom she said she will fight for and give equal treatment.

The drastic shift of Grace Poe’s campaign, as illustrated by these advertisements, shows the intensity of the recently concluded presidential elections. As the numbers of the pre-election surveys were very close, there was a need to capitalize on every aspect that may give an advantageous position, including those mistakes by other candidates. Grace Poe, being packaged as a caretaker and protector of the Filipinos, saw the Filipino voters as people in dire need of her help to immediately relieve them from poverty, to nourish, and safeguard them like how a mother would for their children.

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Mar Roxas

Like most candidates, the Liberal Party released a series of videos leading up to the start of the official campaign period. One of those first videos is the music video of the campaign song, “Fast Forward”, sung by Billy Crawford, Jay R, and Kris Lawrence. Most of the people featured in the music video were celebrities (mostly from ABS-CBN), like Kathryn Bernardo, Daniel Padilla, Maricel Soriano, Karylle, Angelu de Leon, Carla Abellana, James Yap, Ramon Bautista, Melai Cantiveros, Jason Francisco, Rufa Mae Quinto, Martin del Rosario, and Chokoleit. Mar Roxas and his running mate Leni Robredo were also present in the music video, as well as their families.

As opposed to the usual political advertisements that depict poverty, the Fast Forward music video was quite positive. The music video was set mostly in what seems to be an upscale business district, probably Makati or Taguig. While celebrities were prominently featured throughout the video, they were somewhat integrated into scenes of “everyday life” with regular people, which will be discussed later on.

What was particularly striking about the people in the video was that everybody was smiling. There were no hints of extreme poverty in the video; in contrast, the urban setting and positive feel of the video highlighted the emphasis on progress. The lyrics of the video were positive as well, focusing on themes like unity, hope for tomorrow, and the youth.

The “regular people” featured in the video included college graduates wearing their togas, construction workers at a high rise building, call center agents, office workers, young children, senior citizens playing checkers, people at a market, and people at a basketball game. In all scenes, the people were very upbeat, and all were decently dressed (mostly in yellow). It’s also worth noting that the young children and office workers (assumed to be in their 20s) in the video were shown to be receiving Christmas presents; the song’s lyrics include “Ang sagot ay ang kabataan / Sa magandang kinabukasan / Ating mundo ay kay ganda / Kapag sila ay ating kasama”. The Christmas presents perhaps allude to giving the gift of a brighter future.

Two specific scenes alluded to progress and development, the first of which was the scene with the yellow COMET, an electric vehicle launched in 2013 and seen as an alternative to the jeepney. The other scene is that of the construction workers in what seems to be a construction site for a high rise building.

Overall, through the Fast Forward music video, the Roxas campaign focuses on one core theme: inclusive growth, and the campaign views voters as people who envision a progressive and positive future.

Another video released on the official Facebook page of Mar Roxas a few weeks before election day did not exactly have the same “positivity” of Fast Forward. Instead of the heavy idealism that was shown in the music video, this video tended to be more straightforward. (Link: https://www.facebook.com/mar.roxas.official/videos/10153700207609353/)

This video was titled “Walang Drama”, and began with a scene depicting a politician campaigning to people in a poor community. The people are shown wearing clothes typically worn in low-income communities, like dusters, basketball shorts, and the like. The “street” (the scene was taking place on a studio set) was not very clean and had sari-sari stores, stray dogs, benches, and stray tires around. It was a typical scene you would find in ads like that of Jejomar Binay.

Midway through the scene, all the actors freeze and a narrator says “Political ad nanaman? Tanggalin ang props!”; men in black clothing enter the scene and carry the props away. After that, the cast is also carried away, the set is taken down, and the gloomy music is stopped. The tarp in the background is lifted to reveal the words “WALANG DRAMA, TRABAHO LANG”.

The very essence of the video is that the Roxas campaign wanted to do away with the usual theatrics that are common during campaign period. Roxas views voters as those who are tired of the usual “drama” and want a candidate who will simply just get the job done.

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Video from Youtube.com (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g8Kg2VENL0)

If the previous candidates spent resources in producing several campaign materials, Defensor-Santiago spent the least. Because of this, the researchers have learned that there were only four campaign materials that MDS produced. The first two were aired on TV, but only one can be found online. The second one is a song composed by one of her volunteers and was endorsed by the staff handling the official Facebook page of MDS. The fourth one is a 1992 campaign material used by MDS when she ran for president back in 1992.

The 1992 campaign material did not qualify because it was specifically produced for the set of voters back in 1992, and that, after 24 years, so much evolution has happened to the Filipino voters. The jingle produced by the volunteers also did not qualify for this study because it was a music video featuring MDS herself. The lyrics of the song was also more of an inspiration than actually addressing the voters, understandably because it was not part of the official campaign.

Thus, of the four samples, only the one was qualified for this study. This Youtube video was entitled Miriam Defensor-Santiago TV Ads.

This video focuses on the employment issues in the country and how MDS plans to solve it. It was followed by MDS’s answer: “Ang dapat d’yan para mabigyan ng trabaho at hindi na mangangailangan pang pumunta sa abroad ay mag-emphasize tayo sa export program. We must have a program to at least double the per capita income of every Filipino.”

Since the video focuses on how MDS’s will try to solve the issues of unemployment and income per capita, the analysis will revolve on the voter that is being addressed by this video.

This video emphasizes how MDS targets those who are in the labor force for them to receive the amount that they deserve, and in the long run, decrease the number of OFWs by doubling the income per capita.

Her answer also mentioned the export program. She wants to improve the production in the country so we could focus on selling Filipino-made products which will help improve the economy.

The main focus of the political advertisement are the Filipino workers, and how she proposes to improve their working environment and status.

To align it with this research, for MDS, the Filipino voter is a worker who may or may not have a job. Further, the Filipino voter who has a job is earns less than what the worker deserves that this voter, even if he has a job, would rather work abroad where he could earn more money. The Filipino voter for MDS is someone who earns a little, and those earnings must be doubled.

For Miriam Defensor-Santiago, there are two kinds of Filipino voters. The first one are the Filipino voters who have jobs, whom she shall help by ensuring a doubling of income per capita. The second one are the jobless Filipinos which she shall help by focusing on export-oriented programs, hitting two birds in one stone: job production and economic development.

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So, what have we learned so far?

How and why did the candidates construct the image of the Filipino voter?

As stated in the theories used in the review of related literature, psychological and sociological factors greatly influence how and why the electorate was seen that way. By considering which specific groups in the population they would likely appeal to the most, the candidates created this image of said groups coming together to potentially vote and support them come election time. Also, media influence and portrayal of voters prior campaign season was held as a vital contributing factor. The resulting image of the Filipino voter could be owed to the well-established rational choice theory, with the candidates knowing too well that the majority of the voters belong in the working class. The candidates may have varied platforms and advocacies thrown at the general public, but they still hold dear the fact that the electorate is mostly comprised of the proletariat.

Who is the Filipino voter according to the candidates’ campaign materials?

Based on the advertisements used for this paper, most of the candidates seem to construct the Filipino voter as a citizen belonging either in the working or lower class, aspiring to witness significant change in the ways the government addresses the nation’s needs.

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Implications and Recommendations

The first implication is how, as a campaign advertisement, the target audience/target Filipino voter is embedded in every campaign material. This could be backed up by the study’s findings. Through which, we were able to identify the different socioeconomic blocks that the candidates are courting to get their votes.

The second is how, as we can see in the results, the candidates differ in priority. However, the block of those voters from the middle to the lower class were very crucial, too, as most of the campaigns address voters that belong to these socioeconomic backgrounds.

This study’s findings, through a surface-level cross examination with the results of the elections, ensure how the voters are more critical with the campaigns. Following this thought, it could also imply how spending too much and producing too much advertisements are not correlated with winning. This is a proof that, on this election,  the masses are critical of the elections.

The last implication is that, campaign materials can be used to determine who is the priority of the candidate, which could be affected by a number of different factors. This could be used to counter-check if the same priorities hold during the term itself.

The outcome of the presidential elections can analyzed using the results of this study. Using the data and analyses herewith, how has the representations of Filipino voters affected the results of the election or the image of the Filipino people? The campaign materials of the next president, Rodrigo Duterte, deserve further study as well due to their guerrilla grassroots style of marketing.

Other recommendations would be to (1) change the sample, or (2) expand the samples analyzed. The samples can be changed using a different time frame, or by only choosing those premature campaign materials. On the other hand, it can be expanded if the researchers have more time by studying more videos which belong to the sampling frame, even studying the posters, platforms, roadshows etc.. Through the use of more samples belonging to the same sampling frame, the results of this study can  be validated.

Another recommendation is to study the breakdown of the voters of the different presidential candidates according to socioeconomic status and use the results of this study to compare if the campaign materials were effective in addressing the target Filipino voters of the candidates.