Miscommunication causes overblown media problem

Communication is a simple matter of transmitting facts and information. In our day and age this simple process can be the cause of serious misunderstandings. At the moment, for example, the public is at a loss regarding the simple question as to whether Vice President Teofisto Guingona has resigned as Foreign Affairs Secretary. The press has been quoting both Vice President Guingona and Malacañang. But no one still has a definite answer to the question. The most logical solution is for Vice-President Guingona and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to come out with a joint statement on the question. That would settle the controversy once and for all.

We found ourselves in a similar predicament weeks ago. I had been appointed by President Macapagal Arroyo to the Chairmanship of the Movie Television Review and Classification Board. My appointment was on a temporary basis and through a third party, I requested President Macapagal Arroyo to be relieved of my post. One day, I received several calls from different representatives of media – the press, radio and television – asking me why I had been relieved of my position in the MTRCB. Since I had not received the official information from the Palace that my request had been granted, I told the media representatives that I had not been officially informed of said development.

The next day, the item of my relief from the MTRCB was in all the newspapers. Some took it to mean that I had been sacked. The truth is that my request had been granted.

My relationship with President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has always been warm and cordial. It is not an exaggeration to say that I am an extension of the late President Diosdado Macapagal’s family and that President Macapagal-Arroyo is an extension of my family. From the time that I knew her, she has always called me Tito Anding, in private and in public.

What happened is that she granted my request to be relieved as Chairman of the MTRCB at the time that by pure coincidence Secretary Alberto Romulo underwent an emergency operation. That is what caused the failure of an official communication.

Our point is that it is true that I did not receive official information that my request to be relieved of my position in the MTRCB had been granted but that there was no malice or intended oversight on the part of the Palace.

Since the demise of President Diosdado Macapagal and later his widow, Doña Evangelina Macapagal, I have seen Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regularly twice a year at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. That is during the death anniversaries of both her parents.

To sum up, I was not removed from the Chairmanship of the MTRCB. My request to be relieved from the position was granted by the President. It was a delay in the official notice that caused a misrepresentation in some sectors of media.