‘OPS’ jobs

“Sir, How do we deal with situations where we know that we are the target of an OPS?”

“OPS” refers to “Black Ops”, “Demolition Jobs” or “Negative Public Relations campaigns” conducted by competitors, political enemies, or someone with plain and simple malicious intent for personal or monetary interests.

It’s bad enough if you are in a government agency with low popularity or integrity ratings, but when a disgruntled company or political interest decides to conduct an OPS on your department or agency, things get worse since OPS are designed primarily to get you fired, get your boss fired, or to derail whatever activities your agency or department may be conducting.

Nowadays, the clear cut example of such operations are the on-going media and publicity war between private corporations and bidders that are determined to win government contracts especially under the DOTC. In the early days of the P-Noy administration this was very apparent when a “corporation” split into 2 groups and contested who had the legitimate rights for the IT management contract with the LTO. This public PR war was then followed by other PR wars and demolition jobs the latest of which involves the Cebu-Mactan International Airport.

Historically, only the competitors were involved and never dragged government officials or offices for fear of reprisal. But that was then, now, no one is held sacred especially by the unscrupulous and underhanded bidders and PR practitioners. A very common attack nowadays is designed especially against government officials who are known to be squeaky clean and strict when it comes to rules and regulations. The unique features of such an attack is that it implicates or suggests corruption or immorality on the part of the official in an act so unbelievable it won’t stick, but so well-scripted that it makes readers and listeners curious and very entertained.

Victims of such OPS were Balsy Aquino in the MRT scandal, Ruffy Biazon during his stay at the Bureau of Customs, and most recently Undersecretary Ted Herbosa of the Department of Health who comes from the academe and who has been like a pit bull concerning government projects and biddings. In the case of Balsy and her husband, the point of dragging their names was to insure that the scandal got the President’s attention or to embarrass P-Noy himself. In the case of Biazon and Usec Herbosa, vested interests and criminal elements were clearly working on removing their worst enemy and nightmare from the system.

But not all OPS are limited to government projects. It is now common to hear of OPS being conducted against select businesses and major corporations primarily because of stiff competition, or because certain “business legends” simply can’t stand the thought of becoming yesterday’s big shot or being diminished in stature and competitiveness. Sadly some people even do it as a booster shot to remind CEOs of their venom or their presence as “communications specialists,” “PR consultants” or “crisis managers.”

Last year a senior corporate executive who was so angry about the aftermath of such handiwork vowed to take action against an individual who conducted such an OPS. But right after containing the damage, the executive cooled off on the idea with a promise from the culprit he would never do it again, a promise he has kept. However that has not prevented other people from picking up from the same pile of dirt and throwing it at the “targeted company.” Unfortunately this type of activity or movement is what I call IEDs or “Internally Engineered Demolition” where the people responsible for the attack are people within your business circle or professional contacts.

This is the ugly side to aspects of crisis management. A big boss of a logistics firm once asked me what to do with a self-styled “PR expert” who charged P6 million to handle what he classified as a crisis. As it turns out the so-called PR expert spent P2 million on the enemy, pocketed 2 million as professional fees, and then spent P2 million to create a new set of enemies against the logistics company!

So what exactly do you do when someone or some entity decides to do an OPS on you?

First, make sure that you are the target. I remember when my father Louie Beltran wrote that an “expose’ was about to come out that would reveal a presidential candidate who had another family hidden away.” By his guess, my dad expected that the candidate would surely be calling on him before the end of the day. What happened was several candidates called to ask if “he” was the candidate in question!

Second, you may be innocent but you are the target, so don’t ignore the issue. As I told Usec Herbosa, you owe it to your family, to your department, to the public and to yourself to approach the author or source of the inaccurate information in order to correct it. It is also an opportunity to turn the tide from negative to positive, but always in a polite and good way.

Sad to say, such black OPS can only be dealt with by fighting fire with water, which is the cold sobering truth of facts and figures. The fairness doctrine is very much alive in media as long as you go through proper channels and make it clear that you are not judgmental, vindictive or picking a fight with the media. You are merely correcting a disinformation fed to media, not accusing media of disinformation. Remember, you want them on your side.

Third, be pro-active. I told my class at the PPP Center that their engagements will always be wrought with problems because biddings and business interests are just like elections in the Philippines. Nobody lost; they always claim they were cheated. No one is ready to say the competition was a better man, they say the competition had inside info or bribed the bidding committee. So if you know that black OPS and negative PR will surely follow, then prepare for such eventualities. Don’t wait. Get ahead. Create a team for the purpose and keep them busy.

Finally, develop the right relationships and transparent image. They can’t accuse you of having skeletons in the closet if you have see-through closets or no closets at all. As they say you don’t have to prove anything to the people who know you, and you can’t do enough to convince those who want to doubt you.

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