Wow! Philippines is still a good slogan

The story going around is that Superstar boxer Manny "Pacman" Pacquiao had agreed to be the poster boy for the Department of Tourism (DoT) which recently got flak for their sheepish attempt to change the old slogan "Wow! Philippines". But I got many text messages that the Philippines was late in asking Pacman to be its poster boy as the Americans already tapped Pacman to be its poster boy, putting his lifelike images along the US-Mexican border in order to keep the illegal Mexicans from crossing to the United States. This is only a joke, but then this is the problem with the DoT for doing those ridiculous ideas!

Anyway, we did get a lot of positive comments on the articles we wrote against the DoT's ill-fated attempt to change the old and tried "Wow! Philippines" tourism promotional program and change it to "Pilipinas Kay Ganda". With no less than Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III admitting that because of the flak it caused, it was abandoning this plan and therefore, we should now move forward to other relevant topics. At least, we salute P.Noy for kowtowing to the will of the Filipino people, his boss!

But wait! It seems that the god of the DoT isn't over this issue yet. As the Philippine Star reported yesterday "DOT to adopt entirely new concept for slogan". So in the end, whether we like it or not, Sec. Alberto Lim will still find ways to change the old "WoW! Philippines" perhaps with something more palatable for the tourism industry. This only shows how hard-headed is the new DoT Secretary for insisting to remove the old DoT slogan, even if there was nothing wrong with the old one! Even if they put Pacman as their poster boy, Wow! Philippines would still be a perfect slogan; after all, Pacman wowed the world with his 8th world boxing title unmatched in boxing history!

Come now, it's a no-brainer! Someone within the Aquino campaign staff most probably made certain promises to the ad agencies and perhaps the printers of their election material, hence this matter falls on the shoulders of the DoT to implement a new slogan, not because it is old or passé, but rather because changing the old slogans means printing new poster materials, which means money! I can see through this, after all, it was the opposition then led by the Liberal Party (LP) who could point out such potentially corrupt details and expose them to embarrass the previous administration. But today, it seems that the Aquino administration is doing the same things!

Of course now, the DoT would open the naming of the new brand to the public so that broadcasters, columnists or other pundits would busy themselves in finding out a catchy name for the new slogan. But for the Aquino administration, the reason they are hell-bent on changing this slogan to a new one is plain to see. They are paying their political debts!

A case in point is a report by no less than RG Cruz of ABS-CBN News last Nov.18 that revealed that Campaigns and Grey, the advertising company behind the numerous campaign ads of then Presidential candidate Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III was confirmed to be the agency that was behind the ill-fated "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" campaign. This only surfaced when it was discovered that the new slogan virtually plagiarized the Tourism Ad of Poland, almost to the exact colors and fonts used. This brought Campaigns and Grey to point to DoT officials for insisting in using the Polish ad.

Perhaps it is time to ask yourself, didn't Pres. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III win his Presidency based on the negative campaign that the administration of then Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo was corrupt and did not exercise transparency? In my book, what happened last week when the DoT launched its new slogan was not transparency! So in the end, the Aquino administration is also doing what PGMA did during her term. This is akin to the pot calling the kettle black!

The news is out that P.Noy is open to liberalizing the Civil Aviation Industry as a means to increase tourist arrivals into the country. This is something that's right our alley. We've been pushing for Open Skies since we started writing columns 24 years ago. However, after all the years of deliberating this issue, I now believe that we should only have Partial Open Skies, like we can pursue it in Mactan or Boracay, but not in Manila.

But before everything else, P.Noy must also make sure that Philippine Airlines (PAL) would be in a better financial health, after its row with the labor unions before it implements E.O. no.219 the Liberalization of the Air Travel Industry. Right now, Filipino passengers are enjoying great fares thanks to the stiff competition between PAL, Air Philippines and Cebu Pacific Air (CPA) but if any of these airlines collapse, then we'd be back to the stiff airfares that we've always had to suffer.