Director Kip Oebanda has rarely shied away from tackling the harsh realities of Philippine history and politics. A prime example is his 2018 film Liway, which follows the life of the namesake character as a mother and a revolutionary cadre during Ferdinand Marcos Sr.’s regime. Liway serves both as an exploration and a critique of the state of the nation—that the Filipino people are persistently haunted by the past, and only by confronting it can the country truly move forward. Six years later, the director pens another film to expand his narrative on the history of our suffrage.
Balota, written and directed by Oebanda and co-produced by GMA Pictures, trails a familiar path the filmmaker started in Liway: an articulation of the national elections, one of the country’s biggest challenges. Starring renowned actress Marian Rivera, the film foregrounds election-related violence in a small, provincial town. It tracks the struggles of Teacher Emmy as she navigates the nightmarish experience of carrying the last ballot box that will determine the winner of their town’s mayoral elections.
Guns, goons, and gold
The film opens with blaring campaign jingles from the two opposing parties of the elections. These lyrical promises of good governance add to the political milieu of the film while also characterizing the populist candidates. But this is quickly upended when a poll official is killed by members of a syndicate, setting off the town’s descent into vote-buying schemes.
While the film gets to the meat of the problem with local elections, it nevertheless makes dangerous assumptions about the majority of the public as unthinking and uncritical voters. As the henchmen handed the bribe money to the townspeople, they only responded with “Oo, sigurado, iboboto namin ‘yan.” By painting the electorate in such broad strokes, the film reduces the complexities of voter behavior, reinforcing stereotypes about impoverished communities and their susceptibility to corruption.
(Yes, of course, we will vote for them.)
At the same time, a big chunk of the film is interested in a particular set of supporting characters: the hired goons. Their dialogues never fell dull nor flat, and their menacing presence captures the climate of electoral violence that pervades the town. The film takes a clear stance on these violent acts, even explicitly indicating that the police are involved in these dirty operations. Trapped and severely wounded in the wilderness as she tries to outmaneuver the goons, Teacher Emmy tells her son in a phone call, “‘Wag kang hihingi ng tulong sa mga pulis.”
(Don’t seek help from the police.)
As a commentary on local elections, the film is strong. However, its function as a political satire remains lackluster. It juggles multiple genres—a critique of Philippine elections, an action thriller, a campy slapstick, and a family drama—without fully committing to any. Though the film takes on a solid theme, its screenplay is weak and quite unremarkable. Balota succeeds in anchoring the conflict through Teacher Emmy’s experiences, brought to life by Rivera’s superb acting. Still, it glazes over the details and struggles of every other character who populates the teacher’s community.
Queerness and humor
In the film, Rivera makes light jokes, wails in the forest, seduces a la femme fatale, and eventually gets into a scuffle with a member of the syndicate—more or less what Leonardo di Caprio experienced in The Revenant. While Balota clings onto the actress’ versatile and almost masterclass performance to magnify the election drama, the film’s appeal did not rest on Rivera’s stellar acting and star power alone. Instead, it is substantiated by her co-cast, who have equally stepped up to the limelight.
Queer social media icons Sassa Gurl and Esnyr are introduced as active political agents Babe and Ehrmengard. They take a stand on issues that surround their communities and even campaign for two opposing candidates in carnivalesque parade floats. Along with Donna Carriaga, who plays Anita—a widow grieving the loss of her husband who was killed in the factory owned by one of the mayoral candidates—the supporting cast drives home both the pressing political subject of the film and its satirical element. Toward the end, the trio become the primary force that mobilizes their entire community to free Teacher Emmy from captivity.
Oebanda’s script offers a nuanced portrayal of his queer characters, who are there not only for comic relief but also as active decision-makers. Nonetheless, the film tends to stereotype Babe and Ehrmengard; humor becomes a double-edged sword. As Babe and Ehrmengard continue to banter and become each other’s object of ridicule, the political message of the film becomes defanged and unconvincing, with some jokes having an almost misogynistic and backward-thinking undertone.
Testament to this is Babe’s conversation with Teacher Emmy about the irony of the educator’s activism. Babe teases that although Teacher Emmy joined protests against the Visiting Forces Agreement, she is followed by her history of sleeping with white men. While Balota intends to mock the absurdity of Philippine elections, some of the jokes limp the supposedly radical message of the film.
A way out of the cycle
Balota ultimately wrestles with a central question: Are we doomed as a country? The film does not offer a clear answer, but it suggests a path forward. As the film nears its end, Teacher Emmy pronounces to one of the candidates, “Wala sa inyo ang pag-asa. Nasa kanila,” pointing to her community. Indeed, hope is with, from, and in the masses, and it is only through them that genuine change can occur.
(Hope is not with you. It is with them.)
Balota concludes with yet another election, this time with a member from the community, Babe, vying for a position. Sassa Gurl’s character poses an alternative to the bureaucrat-capitalists who dominate the film and the country’s local and national elections. This endnote clarifies that although we have no choice but to subsume ourselves under the crushing bureaucracy of routine elections, what matters is the compulsion to penetrate the system and introduce radical—if not revolutionary—changes to the people.
