Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile also finds the ‘Love the Philippines’ slogan unsatisfactory
The nation is still recovering from the embarrassment generated by the recent fiasco at the Department of Tourism headed by Secretary Christina Frasco, a politician from Cebu.
She belongs to the Garcia political dynasty that dominates the province.
Last month, news reports revealed Frasco’s DOT allocated a staggering P49-million for a campaign project to promote tourism in the Philippines.
The campaign called for a videogram to focus on tourist destinations all over the country.
It also called for other promotional strategies, including a new slogan and a new template logo.
The project was awarded to DDB Philippines, a public relations company.
According to the DOT, the materials to be used in the campaign must be original creations, which means DDB Philippines must produce the videogram using its own visuals.
After some time, DDB Philippines submitted to the DOT a new tourism campaign slogan and the contracted videogram, among others.
Surprisingly, the new tourism campaign slogan was the bland and simplistic phrase “Love the Philippines” which is to replace the existing one—“It’s more fun in the Philippines.”
As for the videogram, the DOT apparently accepted it on its reckless assumption the visuals therein are, as promised by DDB Philippines, original footage of real Philippine tourist destinations.
Thereafter, the DOT disseminated the videogram to the news media, and online.
Soon after that, many experts on visual graphics noticed that several segments of the videogram are not original materials produced by DDB Philippines.
The segments are stock footage which DDB Philippines apparently acquired from an upscale distributor which sells them.
Aggravating the problem is the stock footage are not even about real Philippine tourist destinations, but sites located in Asia and the Middle East, among other places.
The DDB Philippines videogram made it appear those foreign sites are in the Philippines.
That revelation put Frasco’s DOT in very embarrassing light.
The anomaly was all over the news, both local and international.
It indicates Frasco and her DOT personnel responsible for the DDB Philippines project failed to notice the fraudulent misrepresentation—foreign sites made to appear they are Philippine tourist destinations —before they allowed the dissemination thereof to the public.
Didn’t they even watch it before they disseminated it?
That revelation also indicates Frasco and her DOT minions are unable to distinguish between local tourist destinations from tourist sites abroad!
Officials of the DOT are not even familiar with our very own tourist destinations!
How can they even begin to promote tourism in the Philippines?
After Frasco’s fiasco was exposed, Frasco announced the DOT will no longer use the videogram.
However, it appears the DOT is inclined to retain the “Love the Philippines” slogan.
Frasco also said as a consequence of this anomaly, the DOT cancelled its P49-million contract with DDB Philippines.
She also claimed the DOT has not paid DDB Philippines anything for the campaign.
Whether Frasco’s claim of non-payment is true or not remains to be seen.
Frasco has not substantiated her story with proof.
Perhaps she expects everyone to take her word for it, even if the incident involves P49-million in taxpayers’ money.
So far, Frasco seems mum about the matter.
The public demands an investigation. Whether or not Frasco has actually ordered an investigation on this fiasco is unclear.
Frasco and her DOT officials should explain why they did not bother to review the DDB videogram before allowing the material to be disseminated to the public.
That failure, which seems to be attended by gross inexcusable negligence, may lead to the filing of anti-graft or administrative charges against the DOT officials who allowed the irregularity to happen.
If Frasco is unable to offer a satisfactory explanation as to why this embarrassing anomaly happened, she should resign her post immediately and spare President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. the trouble of dismissing her from the tourism portfolio.
Regarding the “Love the Philippines” slogan, if the DOT insists on using it, that will create a problem because according to Frasco, the DOT’s contract with DDB Philippines has been canceled.
Be that as it may, “Love the Philippines” seems forgettable enough.
It’s plain and bland, and isn’t catchy enough.
For me, it sounds more like an exhortation for Filipinos to buy locally manufactured products instead of as a tourism promotional slogan.
Presidential Legal Counsel Juan Ponce Enrile also finds the “Love the Philippines” slogan unsatisfactory.
Enrile, a keen observer of events, is known to focus his public commentaries on legal issues. The slogan, which doesn’t involve law, must have been so objectionable to Enrile that he deviated from his usual legal discourses and this time openly expressed his reservations about the slogan.
Senator Nancy Binay also dislikes the slogan, which she called “unsalvageable.”