Chito Miranda, the lead vocalist of the band Parokya Ni Edgar, has claimed through a post on Twitter that he was offered a whooping two million pesos to tweet about a presidential candidate. He said that he didn't accept the offer because his support lies on either Rodrigo Duterte or Miriam Defensor Santiago. The singer added that he would support said politicians even if he isn't going to be paid for it.
Here's Miranda's tweet: "I was offered P2M to tweet for a presidential candidate. Di ko tinanggap kasi gusto ko suportahan si Duterte o si Miriam kahit walang bayad."
In a follow-up post, Miranda tweeted, "For those who are asking kung sino yung nag-offer, di ko rin alam kasi ayaw sabihin nung agency. They wanted to see muna kung game ako. :)"
If Miranda's claim is true, then props to him for not selling out. However, I have a few lingering doubts. First of all, I'm not sure if there's a politician out there who thinks paying two million for a single tweet is worth it. Miranda currently has 988,000 followers on Twitter. If we take into account the inactive followers and bots, the number significantly goes down.
Also, Miranda assumes that the offer didn't come from either Santiago or Duterte. Although it's unlikely that the offer came from either politician, it's not impossible. In a way, the remaining Presidential candidates namely Binay, Roxas, and Poe are painted in some sort of a bad light. If the offer didn't come from Santiago or Duterte, it came from any of the three. After all, they have the wealth to afford a tweet with a two-million price tag.
Miranda said that an agency contacted him and that the agency didn't name the candidate. Well, Miranda also didn't name the agency. So there's that. It's a dead end.
But we have to ask the question "Is it wrong for a politician to pay a celebrity a load of money to tweet about his candidacy?" Of course not. It's part of the game. Once the deal starts to roll, the ball is in the hands of the celebrity. He has the choice of cashing in on his status or he can stick to his principles and turn down all offers from politicians he doesn't believe in. Miranda stuck with his principles and that's a move worthy of our admiration.
