By Arpee Lazaro
One day, while the Head was asleep, the Members of the Body met and started exchanging notes on what they were all doing. The Arms said “he enjoys sports so much that we do the most work”. To which the Legs replied “he can’t get anywhere without me so I do the most work.” And on and on the Members of the body bickered bantered amongst themselves bragging and complaining that each one did the most important work.
Then someone noticed the Belly. Because the Belly hardly spoke a word during the discussion as it was busy digesting, the other Members of the Body went on a tirade against the Belly saying it was the laziest of them all. Agreeing, the Members of the Body decided to deny the Belly food as it seemed it was all it was doing; eating on the job. Because the Mouth wouldn’t open to let any food in, the rest of the Body didn’t have much to do.
Later on the Arms were too weak to move, the Legs got wobbly and couldn’t support the body, and the organs began to fail one after the other. The moral of the story? If you are part of a body, you are all doing important work.
In the human body as it is in government, all parts have a purpose. In government, all departments no matter how trivial they may sound, have an important job to do which in turn supports the other departments. The PCOO or the Presidential Communications Operations Office has an important job to do: “to serve as the premier arm of the Executive Branch in engaging the citizenry and the mass media in order to enrich the quality of public discourse on all matters of governance and build a national consensus thereon.” Or in simple terms, the PCOO is the communication arm of the Executive Branch of government. Whatever it is that the government needs us to know, the PCOO will let us know about it.
They have come quite a long way from just managing the government TV and radio stations. Under the leadership of Sec Martin Andanar, the PCOO has made huge steps in improving the facilities of PTV 4, Radyo Pilipinas and the PNA or the Philippine News Agency online. And for the first time, bloggers or citizen journalists have been given the chance to cover news inside the Malacanang. No longer is Malacanang exclusive to the Malacanang Press Corps. Upon assuming office Sec Andanar has made immediate changes to the rules allowing bloggers to cover the President’s activities, bending even the rules of the Presidential Security Group, the group that handles the close-in security of the President. Allowing unvetted outsiders within 5 feet of the President is any PSG man’s nightmare considering the various possible scenarios that might become a threat to the life of the President.
Secretary Andanar is a seasoned radio and TV broadcaster. Before his stint with the PCOO, Andanar has almost 20 years of media experience.
So why so much hate thrown PCOO’s way? Maybe because they think all that the PCOO does is digest the news and spit out press releases, which is nowhere as accurate as most haters would think. The PCOO’s mandate is clearly to engage the citizenry, not to censor freedom of speech. With the advent of social media, information can made more available and in real time, reporting as it happens. As the President decides, we immediately know about it. As the other senators and justices react, we know about it as well. For the first time in Philippine history, our opinions matter. We are now heard with the barriers of communication being drawn down and all of us are welcome to craft our own opinions and to assemble in groups to share these opinions with like-minded citizens. All this has been supported by the PCOO and more.
But why do they need to engage the citizenry? Why can’t they just churn out releases? Because some media agencies have been known to use the same releases but skewing the facts to fit their narrative. I get my news from the PNA, despite what other netizens say. For me the PNA is both reliable and timely. News must alwayscome from the source, and in the case of government programs and policies, it needs to be disseminated by the PCOO to ensure that all the details are true and accurate.
In the case of the badly written ID, certain protocols were breached. By this time, the PCOO has already identified which cog in the whole machinery has gone astray and they are fixing it. The image of the PCOO has been attacked so furiously by those who want to be in Andanar’s office. Certain personalities in the cyberspace have been launching attacks against the PCOO to make themselves look good in the eyes of the masses. It is nothing more than classic deflection, shifting of blame or projection, whatever you want to call it. There is one particular personality who keeps insisting that the PCOO is under incompetent leadership, while he himself has not even finished a college degree, a basic requirement for a government executive position. Perhaps it is his number of followers that he leverages on, thinking that having many followers in Facebook means that he is a big deal. However close he is to the powers that be, it still means nothing in the realm of public service. Slinging mud on the very government you have sworn to support is in no way a service to anyone, least of all to government. As the saying goes “do not taunt your neighbor with the blemish that you have yourself.”
Before we see the bad in government, it wouldn’t hurt to see the good and the true. For starters, opening the doors of Malacanang to citizen journalists is a huge first that no administration has ever done before. Vast improvements in the facilities of PTV4, PNA and Radyo Pilipinas can be seen online and on TV. Anyone is welcome to visit the facilities, just send them a message on Facebook and your request will be processed.
Arpee Lazaro worked as online media consultant for the PCOO from January to December 2017.