Arroyo finally talks: Palace hired PR firm

NEW YORK (via PLDT) — After weeks of denials, President Arroyo finally admitted Saturday night that she has hired the services of an international public relations (PR) firm to help the Philippines improve its image abroad.

The President said she has approved the hiring of Burson-Marsteller, an influential PR company based in this city and with affiliates in various countries, "to enhance the global image of the Phi-lippines" especially in the eyes of "decision-makers from both government and private sectors."

In an effort to be transparent, she admitted that reports of her office hiring Burson-Marsteller were true. But she stressed that "it’s not just for me but for the whole country."

The President was first asked about the PR firm when she was featured in the Jan. 28 cover of Time magazine. She initially issued a denial, but on Saturday was forced to admit her decision while noting with extreme pleasure the vastly improved impression of the international community of her administration and the country as a whole.

She explained that she is now being sought for interviews by major media companies not only in the United States but in Britain and Canada where she had brief stopovers before going here for the World Economic Forum.

"We used to run after interviews. But now we have to turn down some of them," she told Filipino reporters gathered at her suite at the St. Regis Hotel here.

She added that it was her office which contracted the services of Burson-Marsteller after she ordered the termination of the contracts of two other PR firms hired by her predecessor, ousted President Joseph Estrada.

"All governments hire communications consultants around the world and previous administrations have also had consultants. I just changed it. We just terminated the two and got this one," she explained.

The President also admitted paying $800,000 a year to Burson-Marsteller, but she said the previous administration also paid the same amount to each of the two PR firms that served as its consultants.

She pointed out that her dealings with the New York-based firm are all transparent. "The company is on the Internet. It’s registered. So there’s nothing secret about that," she said. "We actually gave up two (PR firms) to get this one."

Asked on the details of her government’s agreement with Burson-Marsteller, Mrs. Arroyo said the contract she entered into is renewable based on performance. "It depends on how they will perform, how they will deliver. And they’re delivering!" she said.

Under the terms of the agreement, Burson-Marsteller’s job is to enhance the global image of the Philippines. And the President said one of the indicators for its initial success is the Philippines’ improved standing in the international market.

"Look at our stock market, look at our bond offering. Look at what investment expert J. P. Morgan is saying. All these don’t come by accident," she said.

Based on its Internet website, Burson-Marsteller is known as a global perception management firm with clients in different countries and industries. Its most recent clients were Thailand and South Korea which sought its services after the Asian economic crisis struck in 1997.

A local source who once served as Burson-Marsteller’s representative in the Philippines said the company’s client base include multinational corporations, pharmaceutical firms and financial institutions.

He noted that it was only in the late 1980s that Burson-Marsteller expanded its services to include "sovereign communications," which involves PR work for governments of different countries.

"Burson-Marsteller is good, really good," said the source who was able to meet Harold Burson, one of the founders of the firm, in New York in the ’80s. Burson used to be the personal PR man of US presidents, one of them was Ronald Reagan.

One of Burson-Marsteller’s early success stories involved Mexico, according to the source. The setting was the early 1990s and US lawmakers were debating whether to limit the then proposed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) only between the US and Canada.

"Burson-Marsteller was able to convince Capitol Hill to include Mexico in the agreement," the source said. "It was really a big lobbying coup. If they were able to convince Capitol Hill, then they could convince anyone."

But this is not the first time that Burson-Marsteller is dealing with the Philippines.

The source revealed that during the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the dictator imposed a ban on Time magazine after it published a damaging report on martial law. Time hired the services of Burson-Marsteller’s subsidiary – the Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly lobbying firm – to convince Marcos to lift the ban and the company succeded.

Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly now serves big companies such as Philip Morris when it got embroiled in a tobacco scam. It has been linked to various influence-peddling work in the US Congress, and at least two of its founders – Charles Black and Paul Manafort – have been reported as serving US President George Bush and presidential candidate Bobe Dole.

The source added that the $800,000 fee being paid to Burson-Marsteller is a "bargain" considering the very impressive track record of the company.

"President Arroyo is getting a very good deal here. I’m not saying it because I am a PR man myself. I’m saying this because I am a Filipino," he said. – Marichu Villanueva, Junep Ocampo