Cabinet men agree to get act together

They are determined to get their act together.

Cabinet members led by Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo met yesterday at Malacañang to hammer out a concerted communications program to counter the "black propaganda" that the government says is battering the administration of President Arroyo.

Obviously smarting from the continued decline in her popularity, the President said her survey ratings had been pulled down by a "black propaganda" campaign against her.

Mrs. Arroyo ordered Romulo to convene a Cabinet workshop at the Palace yesterday to "improve upon" the government’s communication plans.

The President’s order came in the wake of the release of the Social Weather Stations (SWS) latest quarterly survey showing that the President’s net satisfaction rating fell to its lowest at six percent.

The SWS survey validated the earlier release of survey results for the same period by Pulse Asia Inc., another opinion pollster, that showed Mrs. Arroyo’s performance rating also at a low.

In a press briefing after the day-long Cabinet workshop, Presidential Spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said the Cabinet approved the adoption of the new communications plans for the Arroyo administration, as presented yesterday by Interior and Local Government Secretary Jose Lina Jr.

"(Lina) proposed certain moves to assess and address public perceptions, because it’s been obvious that there are some gaps in our communication, (with) what’s been happening," Tiglao said.

The STAR spotted an Ayala-based communications expert emerging from the Cabinet meeting, but the communications expert asked not to be identified. He said he merely gave insights into how the Cabinet can utilize communications techniques to arrest the slide of the President’s popularity rating.

"The Cabinet needs to get its act together," he told The STAR.

This communications expert figured prominently during the time of former President Fidel Ramos and also served as one of the consultants of then Finance Secretary Jose Pardo during the administration of deposed President Joseph Estrada.

He said he also raised the "alarm bell" to Pardo during the latter part of the year 2000, just before Estrada was impeached at the Senate. He said he warned Pardo about the declining popularity rating of the former president and attributed the slide in Estrada’s popularity rating to many negative stories coming out in media about Estrada’s "midnight" Cabinet meetings with his drinking buddies at the Palace.

In December 2000, at the height of Estrada’s impeachment trial at the Senate, the former president’s ratings slid down to negative figures in both the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys.

In his press briefing at the Cabinet workshop yesterday, Tiglao said the surveys showed the third highest number of criticisms against the Arroyo administration focused on the "high prices" of goods and services in the country.

"But, actually, the inflation rates have been going down," Tiglao said. "While we cannot prevent prices from going up, the pace of growth (of prices) has (hit) record lows in the last five years."

Such information, Tiglao said, was apparently not being fully explained and disseminated by the government to the people.

He said the same thing about the Arroyo administration’s progress of flagship government projects and programs over the last 20 months. "These haven’t been progressively communicated by the department’s concerned," Tiglao said.

"Lina simply proposed a mechanism for each department to communicate what they’re doing, how they’re addressing their problems," he said.

"The communication plan is more of an organizational plan," Tiglao said, responding to reporters’ questions as to why it was Lina instead of Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye who formulated the communications plan.

"All these proposals would involve national level cooperation and coordination. (Lina) was simply tasked to propose an organizational plan for this," he said.

Tiglao said the Cabinet workshop was "not at all" triggered by the negative survey results, but he admitted that there is a need to correct public perceptions and project the achievements of the Arroyo administration.

"That’s part of it. We recognize other problems, of course, but we have to approach the problems on all levels, from communications, beefing up the bureaucracy, correcting the various problems (regarding) organization," he said.