EDITORIAL - Jimenez mocks the pope's retirement

 If the Department of Tourism's “It's More Fun In The Philippines” campaign to draw in the tourists is dying a slow natural death, please do not use the newly-resigned pope Benedict XVI as a tool to pump new life into it.

It is irreverent, insensitive and even ignorant of tourism secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. to suggest that pope emeritus Benedict XVI consider retiring in the Philippines because “the weather is perfect and the people are FUN to be with.”

What is Jimenez thinking? Does he even read the news? Official Vatican sources explicitly said Benedict will be living a sequestered life after retirement and will not be going into the tour circuit like most retirees.

Benedict himself said he will spend his retirement as a silent pilgrim of God. Nothing in his retirement, a decision that has pained the billion-strong Roman Catholic Church, must ever be construed as a signal that he is now in search of balmy climes or fun times.

For Jimenez to consider, even for the most fleeting of moments, that the pope emeritus was aching for good times only proves once and for all that he is incapable of correctly reading situations, hence the reason why “It's More Fun” has laid a big fat egg.

Just consider one “It's More Fun” commercial segment -- the one about moving house. For Jimenez to use this uniquely Philippine phenomenon as a come-on for tourism exposes an utter lack of understanding of what he is doing.

While moving house may be truly unique and interesting, it is not as if you can assure the tourists that they will see one when they come. Moving house does not happen everyday, if it still happens at all. And even if it still happens, it is not as if you know where it will.

In other words, you cannot use moving house to lure tourists because it is not certain they will see one when they come. For Jimenez to anchor a campaign on an uncertainty is deceitful and unworthy of an official government campaign. It is the height of unclear thinking.

And now this. To propose the idea of the pope emeritus being enticed by warm weather and fun times in the Philippines against the backdrop of what is known about his retirement is plain contemptuous frivolity and a mockery of the solemnity of the pope's reason for retiring.