Lesson for Pres. PNoy: Don't cry wolf!

I really don’t know the real reason or the motive why no less than Pres. Benigno “PNoy” Aquino, III himself called that press conference to warn the devotees of the Black Nazarene to stay home because of a terror threat, claiming some suspects were already in custody. It could be that the intelligence group convinced the President of this threat, that he wanted to get the credit for warning the Filipino people himself and, if something did go wrong, then he would be the hero or the boy who cried wolf!

But God always shines on the Filipino people and the only incident that happened was a stampede, which is one of the usual incidents that always plague the Black Nazarene procession. There are two ways to look into this: one that the devotees perceive Pres. PNoy as the devil himself trying to prevent Catholics from going to their annual Black Nazarene event, which is why all the more that people went, and the other is, there really could be no truth to those dubious SWS or Pulse Asia surveys of the President’s high popularity, which is why no one listened to the warning cries of the President and the throng of devotees still went to the procession.

The Philippine Star headlines blared, “Devotees ignore terror warning.” It might as well have said, “Devotees ignore Pres. PNoy warning” because that’s what really happened. Now they are saying, “It was a damn if you do, a damn if you don’t situation.” Come now, doesn’t that happen every year? What was even more telling is that a report from DND Sec. Gazmin said that raids on safe houses failed to capture any suspects or bomb making gadgets and yielded no terror groups. So what was all that fuss about huh?

If PNoy had his usual bevy of Palace Rasputin’s or the lags of Abigail Valte or Edwin Lacierda issuing that warning … and nothing happened, then at least the President could have been spared the embarrassment. But then we have a President who is sorely lacking in social graces and perhaps doesn’t even know what embarrassment really means.

Meanwhile on another PNoy front, once again the Department of Tourism has gotten a lot of flak when it released its new slogan, “It’s more fun in the Philippines.” But isn’t the Philippines really a fun place? With the Sinulog happening this week and the Black Nazarene procession happening in Manila, that caused a stampede that injured a thousand devotees, there is no question that it is fun in the Philippines, despite the President issuing a stern warning for people not to join the procession.

It was more fun for people to join the procession and risking their lives to do their annual homage and devotion to the Black Nazarene. Indeed, there’s no fun staying indoors! PNoy’s warning sounds like the boy from Pamplona, Spain warning people not to go into the streets during the San Fermin Festival because the bulls could run them over!

Now back to more serious matters. The reason why Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez, Jr. is getting the flak these days is because for an advertising man, he did not study his slogan well. First of all, Sec. Jimenez should have learned from the lessons of his predecessor, former DOT Chief Alberto Lim, who began a new slogan dubbed “Pilipinas Kay Ganda.”

That slogan bombed because of too many reasons, one was it was in Tagalog which is why the Tagalog stakeholders in the tourism industry protested because foreigners do not know their language. It bombed because its graphics were plagiarized from Poland. Worse of all, it bombed in the Internet because when you Google Pilipinas, what appears are porn sites for Filipino women. A simple check by a responsible advertising man would have spotted these problems in a jiffy. This is why Lim is now in DBP!

Since Sec. Lim was replaced by Sec. Jimenez, a man well-known in the advertising industry, the betting was on that he’d come up with something perhaps as good as the last great DOT slogan, WOW! Philippines! But then the ink of the new slogan hasn’t even dried and the word was out that this slogan wasn’t exactly new. In fact, it is as old as I am. But nonetheless it was used already in a slogan that declared “It’s more fun in Switzerland!”

Sec. Jimenez just committed a grievous blunder in coming up with a plagiarized slogan. Sure, they can defend themselves by saying that few people even remember that this slogan was used. But nonetheless, it is a revelation that despite the numerous creative Filipinos who have made the world their centerstage, the advertising man on top of the DOT cannot even come up with a unique slogan that others would love to copy. Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not against Sec. Jimenez, I’m only saying that he ought to listen to the tourism stakeholders first before he commits this country into a slogan no one likes to use. Indeed, it’s no fun changing the DOT slogan!

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