If the Department of Tourism is now in the crosshairs of critics, it’s not for a flimsy reason.
The long and the short of it, from the available data gathered from news reports, is that the DOT has tapped an advertising agency that seems to have resorted to short-cuts in producing a video that’s supposed to drum up interest by tourists primarily from abroad to visit the country.
The short-cuts, they turn out, consisted of using ready-made footage of tourist attractions in other countries, among them Thailand, Indonesia, and Dubai, rather than actual shots of local tourist attractions.
And what’s bad is that the advertising agency tried to explain this by saying that it’s just a “mood video,” whatever that is, instead of an official one that would be shown worldwide.
And more: they claim to have done it on their own, out of love of country, and without even getting a single centavo from the government.
But the DOT said the choice of the ad agency was the outcome of a “competitive bidding.”
The resulting public outcry over P49 million (P50 million was the first figure mentioned) that had been initially mentioned as the cost of the video production prompted the DOT to throw the ad agency under the bus presumably to save its own skin.
There’s more: The DOT is likely to throw good money after bad as netizens revealed that the agency will spend a total of P300 million to sell the country abroad with its “Love the Philippines” slogan.
The slogan itself has been slammed by various quarters as trite and uninspiring, and therefore unlovable.
And that’s not the end of it.
In a manifesto of support signed by dozens of officials calling themselves “One Cebu Island,” composed of lawmakers, city and municipal mayors as well as councilors, they said they stood by the Tourism Secretary, a fellow Cebuano and daughter of the provincial governor.
They called the recent criticisms against the DOT and Frasco a “coordinated demolition job” directed at the latter’s leadership, but did not explain how and why.
What’s the real score in this controversy? We really don’t know at this point, given the flurry of exchanges between the two sides.
Perhaps a congressional investigation in aid of legislation will allow the public to sift fact from fiction, or the truth from falsehood.
The least that should be done is for the DOT to fully explain its actions on selling the Philippines and whether its plans and programs are aboveboard and will really attract more tourists, not drive them away.
As thing now stand, the “Love the Philippines” tourism drive is off to a bad start, and could really go off the rails unless the DOT clears the air.