A need to rebrand the Philippines for 2006

Six days from today, the year 2005 exits while the year 2006 will be upon us… bringing us to ponder what does 2006 have in store for us. At this point, we can only say that most Filipinos view 2006 with more optimism than they did the previous years. With all the natural disasters that rocked the earth this year, from tsunamis, earthquakes to hurricanes, you can say that the Philippines was quite blessed in 2005… that these weren’t problems for us in this country. Most of our troubles were man-made problems like so much ugly politics, and given the track record of the Philippines, you can say that much of the same will remain unless we get lucky, like if oil in commercial quantity is discovered in the Tañon Strait.

Baring any miraculous discoveries… there is nothing much that we can expect for next year, except the usual merry-go-round or cycle of stagnation, apathy, political grandstanding and yes, more coup rumors. What we really need is for us Filipinos to start looking in the mirror and ask ourselves… whether we are part of the problem or part of the solution to our nation’s ills? Definitely…we are both!

But the question is, will we ever change as a people? In truth and as a matter of fact, throughout the years, the Filipino has changed… but unfortunately for the worse, although I’m sure we’re just too proud to admit this reality and I don’t need to elaborate on all the basic faults of the Filipino as a people because we all know them by heart.

I say that it is time for us Filipinos to change ourselves and if we cannot, then we ought to install a system which would force us to change for the better! We owe it to our children and our children’s grandchildren, and why? Because our parents’ generation failed us! Take the case of Japan. Prior to World War II, the Japanese were the most warlike nation on earth; they sowed terror in this country, started Kamikaze or suicide attacks against US Navy ships and when they lost the war, their new "Made-in-USA" Constitution changed them.

It is for this very reason why I strongly supported the move for Charter changes even if we didn’t get a Constitutional Convention (con-con), which I strongly believe, is still the right way to amend or change our Constitution. So we embraced the Presidential Consultative Commission (Con-com) which, in fairness, did a creditable job, despite the presence of so many politicians in that body. When we met the Con-com in Cebu, it actually reinforced my belief that we should have had a Con-con… not a Con-com!

It was during those consultations that I also realized that it has been 34 years since the Filipino people were directly asked… what kind of government they wanted to have? In those 34 years, we’ve gone from the 1935 Constitution to the 1973 Marcos Constitution (which was a parliamentary one if you have already forgotten) and the 1987 Cory Constitution. We’re supposed to have a constitution that spells out a government of the people, for the people and by the people… yet it was only during the Con-com that the Filipino people were finally asked… what kind of government they wanted to have?

So once more we are at the crossroads of history with a chance to adopt a new political system that would hopefully induce real reforms in our battered political system. What we need to do is overhaul the 1987 Cory Constitution and rid ourselves of the current presidential and unitary form of government, which most of us know too well has only put us in that dark tunnel without any hopes to see that proverbial light at its end.

I support a paradigm shift to a parliamentary and federal form of government and I insist that this should go hand-in-hand, not parliamentary first and federalism later. However, if this Congress forces us into a parliamentary system without a federal system in place, then I would rather keep this present system with all its imperfections! It should not be said that Congress would be getting what they want, while the rest of the country who wants to be federal won’t be getting theirs. So the ball is really in the court of Congress and that game will be played in 2006.

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Talking about changes within ourselves, I believe that we should also make an effort to rid ourselves of our bad and ugly image. A couple of weeks ago, in Manila, my dear friends Tony and Marietta Cuyegkeng dropped me a printout of a story from the November issue of Conde Nast Traveller entitled "Rebranding… it makes a change." Rhymer Rigby, the writer, uses Spain as an example where it was known decades ago as a backwater peasant country under Generalissimo Franco… but when Spain rebranded itself, it is now Europe’s number one tourist destination.

The same is true with New Zealand when it was known as a country with more sheep than people… obviously not an attraction to tourists. New Zealand was able to rebrand itself, especially when hit movies like "Lord of the Rings" brought to the world screens its natural beauty, great landscapes and the prospect of extreme sports… now tourists go to New Zealand not just to eat lamb chops but to bask in its natural splendor.

Actually when I read the Conde Nast article, it immediately crossed my mind that the writer did not have any idea of what we did in Cebu back in the 80s. It was a time when the Philippines already had the ugly reputation as the "sick man of Asia"… a reputation that unfortunately we still hold today. Thus, when Anos Fonacier started the Tambuli Beach Club Resort and five-star hotels like the Cebu Plaza Hotel and the Zamboanga Plaza Hotel, he already knew that tourists wouldn’t come to this dangerous place… if his ads exhorted the tourists to come to war-torn Philippines.

Thus, Mr. Fonacier and his team came upon the idea of selling Cebu as "An Island in the Pacific." It was not being ashamed of our own country; it was a matter of practicality. Selling Cebu as "An Island in the Pacific" made good sense. Truth to tell, Cebu was never heard of since it was known that we killed the first foreign tourist to come to our shores… that Portuguese conquistador in the employ of the Spanish Crown, Ferdinand Magellan.

I took a taxicab in Tokyo and saw one of those Cebu brochures strategically placed in the back part of the driver’s headrest… you couldn’t miss them! Soon, direct charter flights from Tokyo started landing at the Mactan International Airport… with Japanese tourists enjoying the virgin beaches of Cebu. Lest you have forgotten, the island of Cebu saw one of the fiercest battles during World War II. But the Japanese tourists soon realized that Cebuanos were not hostile to the Japanese people and voila! Cebu had a tourism industry! I suggest that for next year, President Arroyo should work out a program to rebrand the Philippines and if we succeed, believe me, we’ll have more tourists coming to our beautiful islands.

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.