Part II of The Semiotics of Political Posters

I have with me a fan from one of the senatorial candidates, which I use to fan myself when it's hot and when I want a laugh. This is a fan by Tingting Conjuanco which have her and daughter Mykee Cojuanco-Jaworski in old-style terno in an almost embrace. Tingting is still beautiful after all these years and Mykee, I noticed, incorporated a horse head in her signature. How cute! 

Except for the terrible walis tingting with a yellow ribbon. Of course, I got it: name recall. But still ridiculous. Does she give away walis tingting in her sorties? 

If there's one local party which should have used walis tingting, it should have been the Timpuyog ti Baguio. The logic is: one stick can easily be broken but hundreds of them together is unbreakable. But that was already taken by Mondax's "Timpuyog ti Iit." 

A study of common posters showed that at least in the US, most of the posters used the red, white and blue of the American flag because of the voters are patriotic and put flags on their lawns. 

Filipino politicians have red, white, blue and yellow to choose but almost no one do so. They have party colors: red, white and blue for KBL, predominantly blue and yellow for LDP, Lakas has all the flag colors, PDP Laban has black and yellow, NP has red, white and blue and LP has yellow. There are new colors though. Risa Hontiveros also uses purple to how that she favors the RH Law. 

The anti-RH should use the pontifical red but they don't. Nancy Binay wears pink in her posters and a perfect smile. Perfect where you show your teeth and the whites of your eyes otherwise... Villar, although she is NP, should not be seen in green because it is the color of nursing, a sector she already infuriated. 

Timpuyog uses green though it gets so boring because many of their background scenes also show green so that they look likes ads for rubbing alcohols. Again, Datuin should not wear red on his green shirt because it will remind voters of Christmas. 

Mark Go is yellow all over his poster. Which puts him in a conundrum because "Yellow" means "caution" and Go should be "green." So that symbol is out. 

The US study also recommends strong types of fonts. So no Comic Sans even if you are a comedian like Tito Sotto. Bagbagen should have used strong type fonts of his name breaking a wall but he didn't do so. Bam Aquino used the exploding frame for his poster though. 

There is also a penchant of putting the Baguio City Hall in the background in some of the posters. It is a way of saying, I will be there soon. But the photo should be inside the mayor's office or the council hall. Otherwise, you're just like someone getting a cedula. 

But Aliping was more imposing by putting his whole body inside the Congress. It makes him a giant figure and if you noticed, his cowboy boots is stepping on the roster where those congressmen named "V" were staying. Ha ha ha. 

And anyway, shouldn't Balisong also feature a balisong in his poster just like Tingting? Or give away balisongs? That would be fun.