Justin Bieber uses star power to do the right thing

BIEBER FEVER International pop singing sensation Justin Bieber hugs a young survivor of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” during his visit to an evacuation center in Palo, Leyte province. DENNIS JAY SANTOS/INQUIRER MINDANAO

Justin Bieber has been getting a lot of bad press of late, with his forays into cathouses, rowdy carousing and hotel-room trashing, and surly encounters with the paparazzi giving him blackeyes in media reports.

But, just last week, the young global sensation made up for all that negativism by unexpectedly flying down to storm-lashed Tacloban and urging all of his fans and Twitter followers worldwide to send donations in cash and kind to the ravaged southern city.

Some Filipinos are surprised that Bieber and other popular international stars (including the recently departed Paul Walker) would go out of their way to help our storm victims recover from the deadly disaster.

However, the reason for the unusually strong stellar response is all too obvious: “Yolanda’s” wrath was so unprecedented and leveled entire towns, thus touching hearts in a most painfully urgent way, and prompting big stars to use their celebrity to galvanize millions of donors worldwide to help mitigate the far-reaching and continuing tragedy.

For his part, Bieber held out his helping and caring hand in an empathetic and natural way, completely in keeping with his youthful persona—and viewers all over the world were convinced that this unexpected visit was genuinely caring, not a savvy effort to rehabilitate his currently bruised stellar image.

Bieber’s most inspired move was to play basketball with some startled Tacloban youths—who will probably henceforth tell their great-grandchildren over and over again about that amazing day, way back in 2013, when they swirled the spheroid for a few beautiful minutes with this hotshot star from Hollywood!

The salubrious effects of Bieber’s consoling detour to Tacloban cannot be gainsaid. Not only did it raise additional millions for urgent relief and rehabilitation costs, but it also put a warmly human face on this phenomenon called Celebrity itself.

Most of the time, stars use their popularity and fame for exclusively self-serving purposes, laughing all the way to the bank. —But, sometimes, when disaster strikes a particularly telling blow on celebrities’ sensibilities, it forces them to realize that there’s more to life than the perks of popularity. —And that, in fact, celebrity is more than just a perk, it can be a power, which can be used to inspire others to help the shell-shocked victims of disaster, by way of their stellar example.

Veteran caregiving luminaries like Bono and Angelina Jolie have known and used this power for a long time, but it’s great to see that much younger stars like Bieber are now following suit.

Since young luminaries influence and inspire millions of followers, this new development or intensification of the power of the caring celebrity is most noteworthy, and hopes are high that more local and foreign stars will be persuaded to use their own star power—and do the right thing!

P.S.: Alas, only a couple of days after Biebers’ beautiful act for typhoon victims, he was once again being rapped and razzed in the media for (allegedly) churlishly describing a chubby young woman as “a beached whale”—and suggesting that she should join “The Biggest Loser!”

Uh-oh, is it back to snarly, swarmy times again for our new hero? Perhaps. —But, you know what? We choose to continue to focus on the new and caring and now positively power-full Bieber—and we’re still a Belieber!