The grist on Giuliani

 (Editor’s note: The author was part of the group that organized the recent extremely successful conference called “Leadership in Times of Crisis” with former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. We asked her to share the inside stories only they would know about.)

Rudy Giuliani touched down at NAIA at midnight on July 28. Even Time magazine’s Man of the Year and the Knight of the British Empire had to suffer a more than five-hour delay from New York, almost missing his connecting flight in Hong Kong. At 7:45 a.m. of D-day, his security detail was given a walk-through of the program details and venues. At exactly 9:13 a.m., Giuliani walked to his holding room. By 9:30 a.m. he was revved-up and raring to connect with his audience.

He spoke for one hour and 15 minutes, the whole time pacing back and forth on the stage. Mayor Jejomar Binay chuckled, “He must have walked the equivalent of 10 kilometers.”

At the sponsors’ dinner right after the event, we were secretly hoping that Giuliani would be too tired for a long social, but he was lively and animated for far longer than even his security was happy about. After he received the gifts from the presenters, he said he would love to visit Makati again. Then, at 4:30 a.m. the next day, he was whisked off to the airport. Giuliani’s first Philippine visit took all of 30 hours.

A lot has been written about Giuliani’s talk, mostly in praise. But there will always be the few who unabashedly claim that they could have done equally well or even better (and for a much lower price). Almost everyone howled at the steep price of P25K for VIP seats and P22K for standard seats — forgetting that Peter Drucker, Alvin Toffler, even Al Ries were in the same price range years ago. I guess the rising gas prices, double-digit inflation and looming recession can warp anyone’s perspective and exacerbate anxiety.  Isn’t anyone comforted by the SONA anymore?

The Youngest

Fortunately, some 600 people felt they could benefit from a leadership conference, and invest in themselves despite the crisis, or maybe because of it. The youngest in the audience was a high school student named Joshua John Lipana, who was 16 years old. His mom said Joshua was so interested in attending the event that she gave him the ticket as a gift. I chatted with him for a while and he was beaming the entire day, happy with his picture and autographed book. This is one teenager who will surely grow up aspiring for more than gadgets, gimmicks and girls!

The Gate Crasher

Have you seen a smooth, almost-handsome, 30ish man of dubious origins, wearing a three-piece suit, claiming to be a European journalist? He talked his way into the Giuliani event by dropping the name of Ambassador Beckingham. He told the flustered usherettes that the British Embassy had asked him just to take a “peek.” Among his other claims was that he was from the European Chamber of Commerce. But the poseur stayed on and on, collecting several calling cards, freeloading lunch, even lining up for a photo op with Giuliani! Talk about the new height of brazen gate-crashing. We have a file of his photos with Rudy the Rock. We’re waiting for our Euro pseudo-journalist to claim his photos. He can collect them for the price of a ticket!

The B-Factor

A few weeks before the event, a menacing, gruff voice called all the numbers published in the print ads and demanded to know if the receiving end was the Binay Foundation. With escalating rage, he accused the foundation of laundering ill-gotten wealth. Then he topped it off by threatening that the organizers might get implicated in the ongoing investigations against Mayor Binay. We wonder who put him up to it. Creepy!

Other Hard-Learned Lessons

1.  Politics is personal. On the Saturday and Sunday before the event, successive columns were devoted to Giuliani’s allegedly untruthful claims — from making the city of New York solvent, to lowering the crime rate, to rallying America during the aftermath of 9/11. The next day, the tirade continued. But this time, the columnist begrudgingly recanted, conceding that Giuliani did turn NY’s economy around and lowered the crime rate — but he is not the hero of 9/11. She then trained her pen against Mayor Binay, whom she suspected would launch his presidential bid at the event. Duh? Not-so-common sense will tell you that you can’t upstage Rudy the Rock. Is it any wonder the “pirma donna” failed to dance the cha-cha?

2.  It’s the economy, stupid! Even when a preferential rate of P15K was offered to the academe, small foundations and NGOs, those who said P22K was too much thought P15K was still beyond their reach. So what, we wonder, would be considered reasonable?  For P5K, maybe we can get the other R.G.

3.  Keeping a balanced presentation is like trying to hold a moonbeam in your hand. When you’re marketing an event of this magnitude, it makes sense to set aside personal prejudices and biases. So we tried to mix known Palace supporters with oppositionists. We even tried to politely suggest that they tone down polarizing statements. Alas, we can’t catch a wave and pin it down.

4.  From those upset with Ces: “Ces Drilon, a leader?” No, a crisis. Tearfully apologizing for her lapse of judgment, which led to the kidnap-for-ransom and endangered her crew, she came out of it stronger and wiser, which is more than what we can say for the other madam who had a lapse of judgment in the past.

5.  From Giuliani bashers: “Why did you have to choose Giuliani?” This was envisioned to be a leadership conference series. But the surveys say that Filipinos see a smoldering crisis in the offing. And the leader with real experience in crisis management is none other than former mayor Rudy Giuliani. But then again, should we believe surveys? We were advised that next time we should just bring in Madonna. But what would the Pope say?

6.  Pro-Administration: “Why did you have to partner with Binay?”

7.  Ateneans: “Why did you have to choose La Salle as your academic partner?”

8.  Other publications: “Why did you choose The Philippine STAR as your media co-presenter?”

The answer to questions 6, 7 and 8 is quite simple. They all put their money where their mouth was. Taking the risk that the event might not succeed, they felt that a leadership conference was important enough to support despite the dark mood of the times. The fact that the Giuliani event happened right after the SONA is purely coincidental, and the opinions expressed by the speakers are not necessarily those of the author’s.