Welcome back, Professor Laquian

President Erap's new Chief of Staff is being portrayed as a typical mayabang na balikbayan. Given his academic credentials and advancing age, I pictured him more as a Filipino who has world class credentials and who has come back to help the motherland. One of my sisters also told me he was an associate of hers at the Philippine Collegian in the late 50s (when I was in grade school). I thought he might be good for Erap.

It helped that I kind of remembered his name. How could you forget such an erotic name? Aprodisiac na, laki an pa! Seriously, I wanted to put in a little more content in my coverage of Manila City Hall when I was assigned to cover it for ABS-CBN before martial law.

I searched the libraries for studies, books on the subject of urban development and there was this book on Manila written by this Aprodicio Laquian, a public administration professor from UP. The book introduced me to the world of Manila ward politics and the realities of running a major city in a developing country. It helped me provide a context to my coverage of City Hall.

When I heard his name again from my sister who told me about his forthcoming appointment to effectively replace Lenny de Jesus, I wondered if this academician still had complete control of his marbles. Giving up the comforts of academic life in Canada for a job at the country's foremost snake pit? I thought, that's just what Erap needs now... a looney running the crazy world of Malacañang.

Next thing I see is a story in the front page of Erap's favorite daily telling of Prof. Laquian's lament about being treated shabbily after giving up so many thousand dollars in contracts and his Canadian citizenship. He must have been misquoted, I thought. The guy can't be a typical mayabang na balikbayan who thinks he is Heaven's gift to the Filipino people.

If he were not my sister's friend, I would have immediately written a column to tell him to go back to Canada. We shouldn't owe him any favors for working at Malacañang. Besides, if it's so bad, he owes it to himself and his missus, to cut his losses. Life is too short, specially if you are 65, to suffer when you can be spending your time amidst the fresh air and spectacular view of the Canadian Rockies. Vancouver and Victoria Island aren't bad either.

But he is my sister's friend so I will offer unsolicited advice instead. Obviously, the number one item in the list is NEVER act like a know-it-all balikbayan. He couldn't have been away long enough to forget that Pinoys don't like people who are mayabang.

Okay, he has a string of academic degrees and earns thousands of dollars which are worth millions of pesos when multiplied by 40 (actually times 28 lang ang Canadian dollars). Us Noypis, doomed to earn only depreciating pesos, are salivating already. But he must have known the job entails some sacrifices.

Item two has to do with his wife. The memory of Imelda Marcos is too fresh for the Filipino. This explains why there is this allergy to a wife of a high official getting involved in official matters even without an official appointment. Look how Loi plays it low key, even if she is a doctor.

Two weeks ago, I heard a number of Cabinet members grumbling about how Mrs. Laquian made a full presentation before a meeting of Cabinet members on how to run the press office. Some of them feel Rod Reyes should be retired but they thought Mrs. Laquian's presentation was out of place since the poor guy was abroad undergoing medical treatment.

They also felt weird that the professor was getting his wife involved in official matters. Okay, so the wife is a qualified professional but this is not the way to do it. Actually, if the professor and his missus were such great academic creatures, how could they have missed the cultural factor in making their moves? Gringo executives flying in for a few days make that mistake all the time. But they can be forgiven because they are from another culture and are only businessmen.

Third point has to do with knowing your limitations. The professor and the missus haven't been here long enough to know the terrain. The theoretical aspects of public administration a PhD knows so well can be so different from the real world inhabited by the Ronnie Zamoras, the Lenny de Jesuses they have to contend with.

And I can only smile at how the missus thinks her stint with the Beijing bureau of the New York Times and her degree from Boston University qualifies her to draft an effective strategy to run the Malacañang Press Office. I can almost hear the UP grads at the Press Office mumbling "ang yabang yabang, Maryknoll lang pala. At saka Boston U? Harvard sana."

I hope the professor and his missus haven't been so burned by their initial brush with the local power players to make them decide to take the first flight back to Canada. I think the professor has much to contribute. I would like to believe he and the missus have their hearts in the right place. Maybe, just a little overeager. I only advise them to be more sensitive to the environment, not to rush in like Sherman tanks in some other people's turfs and not to swagger like a mayabang na balikbayan.

Strike 1. But that's not the end of the game. How they learn from their experience is what's important. One last piece of advice: take things in stride. Do not say things like having given up one's Canadian citizenship and thousands of dollars in income or things like that. That sounds pikon. And in this country, specially in this country's politics, ang unang mapikon, talo.

There is a term for it I learned while covering the foreign affairs beat: faux pas. Bad mistake. This is something the Laquians are experiencing now, because they had forgotten what our culture was all about. But they are not alone. Reader Rosana Sy forwarded to me this e-mail listing a number of cross cultural marketing faux pas, which can be funny.

1. The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?"

2. Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

3. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux." 4. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."

5. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.

6. Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.

7. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."

8. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." The company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"

(Boo Chanco's e-mail address is [email protected])