Salesmanship-101

Fresh from his maiden attendance to the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) held in Davos, Switzerland, President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. (PBBM) was still trying to deflect bashers of his latest official trip abroad. PBBM is obviously smarting from bitter criticisms on his eight foreign trips in less than seven months since he first assumed office at Malacañang. Surely, it will raise the hackles of his arch critics when PBBM embarks yet on another for-eign trip for a state visit to Japan in the second week of February.

But why should these foreign travels in the first year in office of the President be an issue?

While he may be already 65 years old, PBBM is still considered as “the new kid in the block” in the global arena of geo-politics. Newly installed into the Pres-idency in the Philippines, he has to personally meet-and-greet with his counterpart heads of governments, especially to fellow member-states of the Associa-tion of

Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). So far, he had embarked on state visits to Indonesia, Singapore, and neighboring countries like China and Ja-pan. In September last year, PBBM flew to New York where he delivered his first address before the 77th United Nations General Assembly.

PBBM also attended to “must-go” international conferences of the ASEAN Leaders’ Summit held in Cambodia in October. Later in the same month, he flew to

Thailand for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Summit. Prior to WEF, PBBM attended the European Union (EU)-ASEAN Summit held in Belgium.

Winding down on Friday his participation in this year’s WEF, PBBM took pains to explain to media on the much criticized “big” delegation he brought along to Davos.

“We try to be complete. When is the next chance we will get to speak to CEOs of Top Fortune 100 companies, in a period of two days?” he pointed out. Nonetheless, the Chief Executive conceded that any investment mission is a “process” that does not always guarantee success.

Coming out from the global economic dislocation wrought by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic for more than two years now, the Philippines is in competition with the rest of other countries to get back on track for growth and development.
“We have to introduce them again to the Philippines,” PBBM rightly pointed out.

According to Press Secretary Cheloy Garafil, only 11 persons from the Philippine delegation were issued official badges for the WEF. Garafil, however, failed to mention who among the official delegation were given the badges that allowed them entry and moved around at the WEF venue.

Spouses of certain government officials, top business executives, and staff support of Malacañang and in Congress were also in Davos. Since this is a chartered flight of the Philippine Airlines (PAL), PBBM cited, all seats are paid for. As our country’s flag carrier, the chartered flight carries the President’s call sign: PR 001.

But it is a different story altogether for the private business and media delegation in these presidential trips abroad. They pay for their own airfare, hotel lodg-ing, food, and other expenditures.

The private business delegation at the WEF of PBBM comprised of eight well-known business tycoons in the Philippines. They were, namely, Sabin Aboitiz, president and CEO of the Aboitiz Group and strategic convenor of the Private Sector Advisory Council; Kevin Andrew Tan of Alliance Global; Jaime Zobel de Ayala (JAZA) of the Ayala Group; Lance Gokongwei of JG Summit Holdings; Ramon S. Ang (RSA) of San Miguel Corp. (SMC); Teresita Sy-Coson of SM In-vestments; and Enrique

Razon of International Container Terminal. PLDT and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. chief Manuel V. Pangilinan joined the Philip-pine business delegation to Davos last Wednesday.

This brings me back to memory lane while still pounding the Malacañang Palace beat for The Philippine Star. I got to cover the previous state and official trips abroad of past Presidents and witnessed them up close and personal. Some of them like Aboitiz, JAZA and Razon who were in Davos with PBBM were the same faces of Filipino business and industry leaders in the delegation in these travels abroad of the past Presidents we covered.

Notably, some of the businessmen delegation who joined PBBM in Davos like Tan, Coson and Gokongwei are already the second generation of business and industry leaders now included in the Malacañang invites. Their respective fathers used to join us in several state and official trips abroad of the past Presidents.

In one particular flight of PR 001, Coson’s late father, Henry Sy; the late John Gokongwei who was Lance’s father; and Kevin’s father, Andrew Tan along with PAL chieftain Lucio Tan were all on board PR 001 with the late President Fidel V. Ramos (FVR) on his first state visit to China. A much younger Razon then was also present along with Andres Soriano who used to head the SMC, and the late George Ty of Metrobank. Even if they are paying passengers, there was no special accommodations not even to these highest paid and highest earning businessmen and tycoons, not to mention the biggest taxpayers.

Of course, the President, the First Lady and the members of the First Family in the official entourage along with several key Cabinet members and close-in escorts the Presidential Security Group (PSG) were always seated in the front end of the aircraft at the First Class and Business Class seats. FVR would al-ways go around the plane to hold shop talks with all the passengers.

Enroute to Beijing which was about a five-hour flight from Manila, FVR walked as usual going all the way down to the economy section where the members of the business and media delegations were all seated together. Looking around, a known fatalist FVR interjected: “You know, if this plane crashes, one-third of the Philippine economy goes down with us!”

FVR earned the title as the most travelled President in and out of the country during his six-year in office at Malacañang. As the country’s Chief Executive, PBBM could draw lessons and inspiration from FVR as “No.1 salesman” of the Philippines.