Is Coloma's social media strategy dead?

Sabi ko na… hindi nila kaya! When I was listening to Secretary Sonny Coloma as he made his presentation on this administration’s social media strategy during the PRSP Congress a couple of months ago, I knew he was promising more than he is capable of delivering. He also made the mistake of thinking that they were able to utilize social media well during the election campaign. The truth is, social media merely reflected a national clamor for change that incidentally benefited their candidate.

Take a look at them now… a lot of the major stumbles of this administration can be attributed to its failure to engage social media properly. Social media creamed them during the Luneta carnage. There is the Mislang tweet. Now there is the Kay Ganda non launch. Anyone who is active in social media today must have noticed that the administration is practically absent in the furious debates on issues in sites like Facebook.

Frankly, I do not understand what has happened to Sonny Coloma. He now seems to think and even acts like a bullycrat or a bully of a bureaucrat. Power seems to have gotten into his head. He isn’t the same Sonny Coloma I used to know. The old Sonny Coloma wouldn’t, for instance, resort to closing down an otherwise supportive private sector website and hijacking its followers out of fear that free discussions of issues may prove problematic to the Palace’s party line.

Officially, Coloma denies he had anything to do with Facebook’s trashing of a BSA III Facebook Fan page with over two million fans. But Facebook wouldn’t have taken down the website without the instigation of the President’s staff.

The Facebook site in question was the initiative of California-based computer professional, Ben Totanes, and fellow online volunteer Betty Abrantes. The BSA3 Fanpage (at the now-defunct URL http://www.facebook.com/noynoy.aquino) was created in 2009 initially meant to show support for the presidential bid of Noynoy. I even signed up for this one.

After the election, Totanes offered the site to Coloma on the condition that reader comments will not be censored. Indeed, it contained critical comments of the Aquino administration, a feature that adds to the credibility of the website.

In fact, this free discussion of issues in social media was exactly what Coloma said would be the basis of the Aquino administration’s social media policy. The Totanes website would have been an excellent means of reaching out to everyone and giving the Palace a good feel of what people are thinking, something which Coloma told his PRSP audience is his objective.

But once in power, Coloma’s brain started operating differently. He refused the offer of Totanes, then put up the Palace’s own website and someone in his staff must have told Facebook that Totanes is operating an unauthorized BSA3 website and must be shut down. In the aftermath, the recently established official Aquino Fan page managed by Coloma experienced a sudden and as yet unexplained jump in the number of its fans, fueling suspicions that the closed Fan page’s fans were hijacked, GMANews.TV reported.

According to Totanes, when the BSA3 Fan page was earlier adopted as Aquino’s official campaign page, it had some 80,000 Fans. The number of Fans grew to 2.2 million when it was shut down, Totanes told GMANews.TV.

Totanes said it was the same Vicente Romano III of DOT’s Kay Ganda fame, who as the head of Aquino’s New Media Bureau, asked if the site could be used to support to the Aquino campaign. But it is the same Romano who allegedly recommended that the Fan page be shut down after the election. That shows a total lack of understanding of what makes social media tick.

As far as Totanes is concerned, it was the Aquino administration that instigated the closure of the BSA3 Fan page. Totanes told GMANEWS.TV that Facebook doesn’t just close down a Page without an official and authenticated request. “Based on what I heard from our friends in the campaign and people in the know in Malacañang, the Communications Team ordered the BSA3 Fan page to be taken down. They also requested Facebook to transfer most of the Page’s members to the new ‘Official’ Page without their consent).”

It is such a waste. The privately run BSA3 site is an ideal forum with a decent size and reach. It is ideal for democratic debate and feedback… something P-Noy has often enough said, he wants to encourage during his watch. In fairness to P-Noy, he was reported to have been unhappy about how Totanes was treated by Coloma. But P-Noy must show his sincerity in wanting democratic debates in public forums including social media by having a good talk with Sonny Coloma and setting him straight.

Maybe too, the Commission on Appointments who will pass on Coloma’s appointment could explore further if he intends to run the propaganda arm of government as if Hitler was his boss. We shouldn’t be paying scarce tax money for something that works against our democratic principles. Coloma must prove to the Commission on Appointments that he is no reincarnation of Goebbels who will use our money to promote a personal cult of P-Noy the way the folks during Ate Glue’s time did.

Foreign view

Here is a comment I received from a foreign reader who is a long time resident of the Philippines. This is the kind of homework I am talking about we must do ahead of selling tourism to foreign visitors.

As a foreigner who has lived here eight years and who began visiting the Philippines in 1976, I have traveled extensively throughout the country. One prevailing image that sticks in my mind about tourist related destinations in the Philippines is that they are rarely maintained to a proper standard and are thus a big ‘turn off’ for foreign tourists.

Take the example of the large cross on a hill in Bataan. This is a stunning tourist attraction but it is little advertised. When I made my third visit a couple of years ago I was once again impressed by the place although it was obviously crumbling here and there. I went to the toilets and can only describe them as disgusting. I used a nearby tree instead.

Last week I paid my first visit to Palawan and was very impressed with most places I visited. The major exception was the so-called “Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Centre” near Puerto Princessa - the name being something of a misnomer as the few animals and birds there actually needed rescuing from that place.

The Centre was opened in 1987 and it was clear that the place has never had a lick of paint since that time. The crocodile breeding area seemed OK, however the ‘self-guided’ tour of the remaining area made my jaw drop. Only half of the cages had anything in them. A small wild pig stood forlornly in a sea of mud with no dry place to lie down.

The paths between exhibits were a sea of mud and/or overgrown with weeds. The small bridges over streams were broken in places and were dangerous. Several viewing platforms were roped off as they were collapsing. Some of the paths were totally roped off presumably because even more danger lay ahead. The place was indeed a shocking disgrace.

As it is, Philippine tourism is probably more damaged by allowing foreigners to visit such appalling places rather than vice versa.

Endless Fiesta

Here is a reaction from Bobby Tordesillas, a veteran tourism professional from the private sector.

Hi Boo… I totally agree with you. In fact, I conveyed the same idea to Tony Abaya several years back.

My idea was to sell the Philippines as the Fiesta Capital of Asia. No other Asian country can boast of the same. We can have one grand fiesta every month. We already have Ati atihan in January, Sinulog in February and we can assign the ten other months to ten other provinces. Thanks.

Indeed, the Fiesta idea was the original tourism plan of the late President Cory Aquino but was sidelined by the series of coups. The colorful fireworks in the TV ads got an absolutely different meaning, courtesy of Senator Gringo and company. Maybe, P-Noy can carry on where his mother left off.

Eyesight

Woman: I am returning these glasses I bought for my husband.

Optometrist: What seems to be the problem, ma’am?

Woman: He still doesn’t see things my way.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected].