It should be safe to assume that by now, those who are familiar with the real state of the nation know that it is foolish to believe most of the statistics and claims made by Ate Glue last week in her supposed valedictory before Congress. Speaking before an audience of bootlickers, as Senator Zubiri would put it, Ate Glue even received applause for making imagined claims of progress on the basis of statistics that are misleading and cited out of context.
That is the most frustrating thing with Ate Glue. For someone who claims to come from the academe, she is predisposed to misappropriate facts and figures to suit her propaganda needs for the moment. It is always messy to set the records straight after such onslaughts on truth and reality but it is a task that must be done before people start believing the lies and acting on them.
I just want to take the portion on tourism for today’s column. She boasted that her administration caused tourist arrivals to the country to almost double in the last four years. Those who do not know better, like all those brown-nosed idiots who applauded her, are likely to be impressed. But the reality is not something to be proud of because it suggests stagnation.
Even if we initially grant her the benefit of the doubt, the doubling from a rather small base is hardly worth a standing ovation. It is actually worse. In 2008, some 3.2 million arrivals were reported and that already includes overseas Pinoys here for a holiday visit. But the reality is… we did not double or almost double our tourist numbers last year because in 2001, our records already show 2.2 million tourists.
But if we want to measure how effective our tourism program really is, we ought to compare our figures with our neighbors. Last year, public records show Hong Kong drew 26 million tourists, Malaysia 16 million, Thailand 13 million.
Maybe you will say those countries are concededly way ahead of us. So let us compare ourselves to Indonesia which drew almost exactly the same number of tourists as we did in 1991 at one million. In 2008, Indonesia was drawing in more than six million, while we are still struggling with 3.2 million. Then there is Vietnam, a former war torn country that overtook us last year with 4.2 million. There is also Cambodia, with its 2 million tourists last year. Cambodia is definitely going to overtake us soon.
I know why our neighbors have made tremendous headway in tourism and we haven’t. They all have good long-term promotion programs that are not dependent on the whims of the tourism secretary of the moment. They have a business plan for tourism development rather than a political agenda.
Thus, they make sure they have the proper tourism infrastructure (roads, airports, reasonably priced well managed hotels and restaurants) that would make visiting their resorts a breeze. Look at the mess in Caticlan, the gateway to Boracay our crown tourism destination and the overbuilding in Boracay itself, to illustrate exactly what I mean.
There is no medium- to long-term consistency with the mish mash we call our tourism promotion programs that also change with every change in the tourism secretary. The Malaysia Truly Asia campaign, on the other hand, has been running for years with just slight tweaks every now and then. It is also a memorable campaign, which I am told, was conceptualized by a Filipino advertising whiz.
Our present Tourism Secretary appears to be more interested in being elected a senator, which explains why his face is all over media. Rather than get column inches in foreign publications for our tourist destinations, he is more interested in getting his face in local publications. It is about time we get an honest to goodness marketing man to head our tourism effort rather than the politicians with their private agenda.
Ate Glue’s tourism functionaries have also ignored the domestic tourism market. One of my daughters, a teacher in California, is here to spend her summer break with us. We want to spend time out of Metro Manila but the good resorts are outrageously priced. And even then, you can never be sure with many resorts claiming to be five star. Standards outside of the international chains are rather iffy.
Resorts that appear to be within the reach of the middle class usually turn out to be disappointing. Last year, we ended up in a dirty, badly managed excuse of a hotel in Palawan that charged international rates. No one, not government, is making sure our standards are kept world class. I am not necessarily looking for a Shangri-la all the time… just that the rooms are clean, well maintained and facilities work… something along the lines of Patio Pacific in Boracay or Plantation Bay in Mactan, both locally owned and managed.
Two weeks ago, I had coffee with the Israeli Ambassador and he was raving about Siquijor island. He was invited to a resort managed by a foreigner that he said was simple, clean and very relaxing. This is just the kind of resort that Israeli tourists will go for, the Ambassador told me. In fact, he is disappointed that less than 2,000 Israeli tourists come here each year compared to the over 60,000 that go to Thailand.
Why indeed? And yet Ate Glue had the nerve to boast of imagined accomplishments in the tourism sector in her SONA. As a reader suggested, her SONA is really more like SANA.
Quotes from Tita Cory
When she was honored with the Fulbright Prize, Tita Cory said she was “happy that this award comes when I am again an ordinary person. After all, it all began with an ordinary person, placed by Providence at the head of quite ordinary people like herself. I am not a hero like Mandela. The best description for me might, after all, be that of my critics who said: She is just a plain housewife.”
On term limits, this is what she said:
“I could have rigged the 1992 elections for my successor. Instead, I directed the chiefs of the military to do the country proud by assuring a fair and free election, whatever the result. Better still, I could have run myself. The constitutional limitation of a single presidential term did not apply to me; I had taken office under the old Constitution. But that limitation was a cornerstone of the new Constitution I had caused to be drafted and for which I vigorously campaigned. How could I serve as the first example of its moral violation?”
She continued: “June 30, 1992 was therefore one of the proudest moments of my life. I was stepping down and handing the presidency to my duly elected successor. This was what my husband had died for; he had returned precisely to forestall an illegal political succession. This moment is democracy’s glory: the peaceful transfer of power without bloodshed, in strict accordance with law.”
Evening news
Evening news is where they begin with ‘Good evening’, and then proceed to tell you why it isn’t.
Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is bchanco@gmail.com. This and some past columns can also be viewed at www.boochanco.com