Six years after drawing flak for using a budots track in his senatorial campaign advertisement, Senator Bong Revilla is back and doubling down. On Monday, March 17, Revilla shared a new video ad on social media featuring jeepneys, gyrating, and budots.
Like its controversial predecessor, the new ad starts with the declaration, “Nandito na si Bong Revilla!” Budots producer Sherwin Calumpang Tuna, better known as DJ Love, is the first to appear in the video, playing the role of a jolly tsuper. Revilla dances on top of the jeepney, holding up two index fingers to make the number 11, his place in the senatorial ballot.
He isn’t the only politician using budots to reach the masses. Candidates running for local government positions play this and other kinds of dance music in campaign caravans to catch the attention of voters. Former president Rodrigo Duterte — a populist leader like Revilla — also danced to budots when he was mayor of the genre’s birthplace, Davao City.
But Revilla earned the ire of voters and netizens for running a similar political ad during the 2019 elections for a number of reasons. One is that it was indicative of a lack of a substantial platform for his re-election bid. Another is that, between him not getting permission from Tuna to use his track and what felt like an attempt to reach the masses with the music, the use of budots in a political ad struck people as inauthentic.
Now, however, Revilla has more than just Tuna’s permission to use his music; he has the endorsement of the pioneering figure in the grassroots dance genre.
“Hindi mo kami pinabayaan noon hanggang ngayon,” Tuna wrote on a Facebook post sharing the ad. He added that Team Camus, the Davao City-based dance group associated with budots and Tuna, “is Team Sen. Ramon Bong Revilla Jr.”
“Sinasabi nila nag-budots lang daw ako,” Revilla said on social media in February 2025. “Nag-budots ako ng dalawang libong panukalang batas at nakapag-pasa ng 343 na batas na ngayon na pinapakinabangan ngayon ng ating mga teachers.” He cited measures he authored, like the Kabalikat sa Pagtuturo Act, which gives public school teachers an allowance, and the Anti-No Permit, No Exam Policy.
His own news release calls the 2019 budots campaign a “coup de grace” to two previous ads that highlighted his platforms and policies. The ad “successfully set itself apart from the noise of campaign ads flooding the airwaves,” the release reads. He also credited his success in the 2019 elections to the budots ad.
Revilla’s place in the Senate has always been guaranteed by his celebrity status, and the budots campaign banks on his ability to entertain. Whether this makes him an effective politician and a good candidate worthy of a fourth senatorial term is up to the voters this coming midterm elections.
