I got hooked on #WinRi

Alternate Universes and yearning -- for good governance that is.

ⓒ The Manila Times

Access their article here.

OKAY HEAR ME OUT.

Over the course of the past week, a certain pairing has gained traction on social media, even as far as being featured on multiple national news channels. This pairing, surprisingly is of two senators — Sen. Risa Hontiveros and Sen. Win Gatchalian.

I went through different emotions when I first came across the edits and the AUs on Tiktok.

First, what the [bleep] is happening?

Second, why am I suddenly so invested?

Third, wait, actually let’s cook with this.

The WinRi phenomenon is borne out of organic support of netizens. Imagine, some would pay and establish machineries i.e, troll farms, vloggers, etc, for this kind of clout, but this particular internet fixation started as a reaction to Sen. Win’s video of reacting to TikTok videos which included two videos of him and Sen. Risa interacting in senate sessions and on a chance encounter through shared love for fur babies.

Honestly, I found it just a bit cringe that we are shipping real people; public officials at that, but chronically online Gen Zs have a talent of making something out of nothing. Hence, the edits and the AUs, and a power couple in the Senate was born.

Again, honestly, it wasn’t all that surprising to me. Filipinos have a strong love team culture. So strong that even for an artist, being a part of a love team means a better shot at being mainstream and famous than doing a solo career (think KathNiel, LizQuen, JaDine, etc.) It’s also not the first time we’re making love teams out of our leaders. Back in 2016, when Duterte won the Presidency with Leni as the VP, some people would say that they are the “parents” of our nation; in the same vein, in 2022, when UniTeam won, people would post clips of the other Duterte and Marcos Jr during campaign photoshoots — their light interactions, laughing with one another, and again, we made something out of nothing. It’s appealing to us when a certain pairing seems to show that sense of partnership. We see that again now with WinRi being called the “mowm and dawd” (mom and dad) of the Senate.

It helps as well that it seems like a plausible story. They’ve been colleagues for years, and Sen. Win has been showing his support through tweets (his digital footprint is insane), he’s senator who, despite being associated with a different political camp, repeatedly found himself working alongside her on high-profile investigations.

Now, I got hooked not because I suddenly became a WinRi truther, but because I became fascinated by what it represented. How does a crack ship between two senators become a national news story? More importantly, what does it tell us about political engagement in the Philippines?

Here is my big hear me out:

1. It makes people more interested in politics.

   For years, opposition supporters have complained—often correctly—that good governance and competent public service do not receive the same level of attention as spectacle. We often say how we feel that not enough people are mulat or aware (often in our ivory towers, but that’s a topic for next time lol). Yet here comes a phenomenon that, however absurdly, has people clipping Senate exchanges, looking up legislative work, discussing committee hearings, and learning who these senators are beyond election season. That deserves at least some examination before we write it off as mere cringe. Heck, even fanfic writers search what sine die means because of it. If this is a gateway that will make people more involved in fighting the good fight, why not?

2. This is free and organic publicity

   I see the comments of opposition supporters who, as early as now, condemns the lighthearted shipping happening on social media because it pulls focus on things more important, and because they find it cringe.

   The reality is that attention is a political resource.

   We may not like it. We may wish voters evaluated candidates solely on platforms, legislative records, and governance outcomes. Sadly, elections in the Philippines hasn’t operated that way in recent history. Philippine politics has (d)evolved to part performance, part narrative, part emotion, and only then policy. That is not an endorsement of popularity politics. It is simply an acknowledgment of the arena we are playing in.

   So when a completely organic internet phenomenon suddenly places Risa Hontiveros in the feeds of people who would otherwise never engage with Senate proceedings, it is worth paying attention to. Political campaigns spend millions trying to achieve visibility. WinRi somehow did it for free.

3. We cannot make the mistakes we did back in 2022

   The 2022 elections will probably haunt me for a long time. We had, to me, a perfect presidential candidate, but it still didn’t happen. Of course, there were a lot of aspects that came into play— political machineries, trolls, resources that we struggled to put together, but also, perhaps the biggest one: we fell short in creating a united front.

   Even among us, there’s a friction of who held more moral ascendency, who was more intellectually superior. We used language that wasn’t accessible to the regular manicurista or jeepney driver. What is the point of being right if the language we are using isolated the people that we should be convincing? Looking back, one of the biggest mistakes many of us made in 2022 was assuming that being correct was enough. We tell ourselves that if only voters knew the facts, understood the issues, or read the Senate reports, then better political outcomes would follow, but elections, especially in the Philippines, hasn’t worked that way.

   The reason popular politicians thrive is because people feel like they know them. The reason political dynasties endure is because familiarity breeds trust, even when it should not. The reason social media has become such a powerful campaign tool is because attention is now one of the most valuable political currencies available. So when young people who ordinarily would not watch Senate hearings suddenly know who Risa Hontiveros and Win Gatchalian are, I cannot immediately dismiss that as a bad thing. People respond to stories and feeling, I think the WinRi phenomenon allows us to play in the same arena that the others have been playing at.

Now, to get some things straight :I do not think that this is the only way that Risa will be seen as a viable candidate for the Presidency, that is simply not true. None of this means reducing Risa Hontiveros to one half of a love team. Her viability as a presidential candidate should stand on her record, her leadership, and her years of public service. The point is not that WinRi creates a candidate. The point is that it creates attention—and attention creates opportunities for people to encounter that record in the first place.

It means recognizing an opportunity, and being able to recognize how this could help us instead of shooting it down as jeje or cringe. If a lighthearted internet joke can get Filipinos discussing Senate hearings, perhaps the lesson is not that people are unserious. Perhaps the lesson is that political communication has been too serious in all the wrong ways.

The challenge for the opposition heading into 2028 is not simply proving that they are right. It is convincing people to care enough to listen in the first place, and if a bizarre internet love team between two senators accidentally figured out how to do that, maybe there is something worth learning from it.

Disclaimer: Take this with a grain of salt —I am not a political communications strategist, campaign manager, or PR expert. I am merely a chronically online Filipino who wants the good governance we deserve.