Secret of success

As they say, there is no such thing as bad publicity, and that appears to be what is happening with the Department of Tourism’s (DOT) latest brainchild. Hours after being announced, the new slogan, “It’s more fun in the Philippines,” went viral, and now it is one of the most talked-about topics on social networking sites, blogs, and other websites. Some of the discussions centre on the negative, particularly the similarity between the slogan and that used by Switzerland in 1951. Some critics also point out that “fun” is a shallow come-on for tourists, and that the country has no business offering it while millions of citizens are mired in poverty.

For the most part, however, Filipinos have taken to the new campaign like fish to water and have seized the slogan as their own. Already the web is filled with examples of activities that are more fun in the country, anything from diving to eating to sightseeing to, yes, even planking. Some user-generated posters have a touch of irony (heavy traffic with the logo, “Commuting: More fun in the Philippines,” for example), but even these give flesh to the idea that Filipinos are fun-loving people who see the lighter side of everything. The result is a happy mess of new promotional materials that have now reached every nook and cranny of the world.

What is the secret of this successful campaign? Simple: Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez was able to understand the value of social networking and, more importantly, of engaging Filipinos themselves, of making citizens own the project instead of being just viewers from the outside looking in. He realized early on that Filipinos needed to be acknowledged as vital parts of the country’s promotional efforts, and that since they already have the right tools, all they needed was the word of confidence from the top. Now if we can only get the other departments to understand this, we would truly be pushing the country into the 21st century.

No choice

On the one hand, Malacañang’s promise to chop off the heads, so to speak, of local officials whose negligence led to the deaths of at least 22 people in last week’s landslide in Compostela Valley Province is an understandable response to the incident. After all, the local government units (LGUs), from the provincial to the municipal levels, had been tasked to implement a no habitation order that had been in effect in the gold-rush area ever since a similar incident last year that claimed the lives of scores of miners. The assumption is that no one should have been living in the danger zone, and the fact that scores were still buried meant the local officials failed miserably in keeping the miners away from the area.

On the other hand, the miners themselves had certainly known about the no habitation order and yet still chose to stake their very lives there. Obviously the money to be made in gold was more than enough to justify risking not just their lives but that of their families as well, although unfortunately in this case, they found out too late that the price was actually far too high. But it cannot be just a matter of greed, as many have pointed out. Small-scale mining is a source of livelihood for thousands of families and they, like the rest of us, eke out a living from of it because it is all they know how to do. In other words, it is not a matter of being rich or poor for them, it is a matter of having food or going hungry.

And it must also be mentioned that in many cases, small-scale miners are forced to go to dangerous areas because the safer and more lucrative ones have already been set aside by the national government for big companies. They are often left with no choice but work in areas where the balance between life and death are tilted precariously to the latter.

So while the national government has in its mind to punish local officials, it must also look into its own policies to see if its support for big mining is not the reason for the continued illegal operations in dangerous areas. There is a big picture to be considered here, and addressing it properly would put an end to the senseless deaths.

Jon Joaquin is the managing editor of the largest circulation newspaper in Mindanao, the Mindanao Daily Mirror in Davao City.

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