When the audience is the critic, part 2

In my last column piece, I said that the government would do well to learn from the Department of Tourism's recent debacle with the social network. Resigned tourism undersecretary for planning and promotions Enteng Romano surely has. To date, Romano has voluntarily left his post and openly admitted that he did, indeed, hire his daughter Denise to organize the test launch of the new brand “Pilipinas Kay Ganda!” He says in his Facebook farewell message that he didn't see anything wrong with that, because it was pro bono and he wanted to work with someone he could trust. He explained his actions presumably to put to rest all speculations, and the crowd has mostly applauded his display of delicadeza.

Not that the crowd was really asking for his head. If anything, at least among the people I follow, people were just generally expressing, in various degrees, their displeasure over the rebranding and their willingness to help.

Still, Romano took responsibility for most everything and cleared the name of pretty much everyone. It would have probably started to die down from there, but Campaigns and Grey director Yolly Ong decided to address the issue, albeit, at least in my opinion, belatedly already, in her The Philippine STAR column “Citizen Y,” and fanned the flames towards another direction altogether.

Campaigns and Grey, if you don't already know, worked on the rebranding.

Ong's piece, entitled “Pilipinas, Kay Pangit,” implies, among many things, that there is an “orchestrated demolition” job against Pres. Noynoy Aquino.

She writes, “Never has such coordinated online outrage been more violently expressed, eclipsing the anger over the Maguindanao massacre, Morong 43 or the unresolved murders of journalists combined!”

Then Ong hints at several people who spoke out against the rebranding and then proceeds to drop easily identifiable, at least to industry insiders, personal bombs against them. She doesn't name them, much like in a blind item gossip piece. “One accused us of being irresponsible for allowing the client to make us party to supposed plagiarism,” she writes, “That could have passed as a high-minded comment if his own brother wasn’t sued by a leading ad agency and ordered by the Adboard to cease and desist from airing a TV ad that was judged copied from Coke!”

She also writes, “If God gave the themeline in tablets, it still wouldn’t be accepted by the likes of net-dicts who fancy themselves divas of righteousness, but neglect to issue receipts for a lucrative pasta sideline. A Damaso-morality and a pathological need for attention? True, it’s all about you.”

Other parts of her piece sound like the ones I quoted above, and while I admire her impassioned call for “building up” versus “tearing down” the nation, hers is an outstanding example of how not to ride the social network wave. Her response did not address the question the social crowd was waiting to be answered; it only created fires where there were none.

Other than the rational responses to her column piece, some rather nasty ones have cropped up. To date I have seen pictures of Ong pasted in a public forum and some blogs. I have seen posts attacking her personally as well. In utakpugita.blogspot.com, there is a movie poster of her picture, and underneath it is written, “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang.” In Pinoyexchange.com, some users have posted and reposted her pictures, with comments like, “No wonder ang pangit ng “Pilipinas Kay Ganda.” What can you say about the fashion sense and taste of Campaign and Grey's Yoly Ong?”

Not that I am endorsing any of the backlash against Ong. However, in seeing only the malicious side of the social network's response to the “Pilipinas, Kay Ganda!” issue, she was really courting trouble.

To be continued.