Truth in advertising

WE SHARE the disappointment —and the hope as well—of Senator Grace Poe after the Department of Tourism lost its balance in a marketing campaign aimed at propping up the tourism industry.

This is the government’s agency mandated to encourage, promote, and develop tourism as a major socio-economic activity to generate foreign currency and local employment and to spread the benefits of tourism to a wider segment of the population with the support, assistance, and cooperation of both the private and the public sector.

The gaffe from the new “Love the Philippines” video – which featured materials filmed abroad – has been likened to a scam but her hope should be heard by other government agencies that there will be no reruns of such marketing mistakes.

“We expect the incident will not happen again especially to government agencies like the DOT that our people trust,” Senator Poe said.

EVERY new administration in this country is generally welcomed by Filipinos for its potential as the harbinger of change and reform.

First, in addition to the criticisms of the slogan itself, the DOT also came under fire because footage of foreign tourist spots was used in the promotional video for the “Love the Philippines” campaign.

The video featured images of beaches, mountains, and other scenery that were not in the Philippines.

The advertising agency responded to the criticism by saying the video was a “mood video” meant for internal use only and that it would be taken down.

While we are all human and part of the human condition is that we make mistakes, this one could have been avoided if more care had been taken by whoever was responsible for handling socials.

This is a reminder of the importance of careful planning and execution when it comes to any kind of marketing and organizational communication.

As the client—and clients have final approval—DOT should have checked all materials before release.

Any competent operations manager knows to double-check and triplecheck.

This is also why all organizations that have a communication initiative need to put editors and communication managers in place to check the work of implementors.

Second, the “Love the Philippines” slogan fiasco points to the need to create and disseminate clear and unambiguous communication at all times.

To do this you need to hire people who have the skills to communicate well.

MONTREAL, Canada—For many Canadian parents, the start of the summer holidays is turning into a headache, as thick wildfire smoke forces them to check air quality indices the same way they might normally check the weather forecast.

Major cities in Eastern Canada have faced heavy air pollution for several days, meaning vulnerable people— including children—have been advised to stay indoors to avoid the high concentrations of fine particles in the air.

Marion Helies, who heads a summer day camp in Montreal, told AFP the children in her care “are bouncing off the walls because we have been inside for several days.”

“Between the smoke and the rain, it’s a bit difficult for them,” she said, ahead

This is something so basic and commonsensical that it is annoying to see a large and well-funded agency such as DOT make this rookie mistake. Again, don’t blame the third party.

The WEF Future of Jobs 2023 report has identified communication as one of the top 10 most sought-after soft skills.

This means there is a high demand for skilled writers in the workforce. Government agencies need to be able to attract and retain such communicators.

Writing and speaking skills are essential for success in all areas of life.

They are also increasingly important in the workplace, particularly in today’s globalized economy.

For this reason, it is important to develop writing and speaking skills at all levels of education.

Schools should offer courses in writing and public speaking, and they should encourage students to practice these skills in their everyday lives.

By developing clear communication skills, students will be better prepared for success in the workplace and life.

One way I work for this advocacy is by sharing news about the literary community—about writing and books and reading and the people who do them. We need to emphasize the importance of writing and communicating well.

DOT and the rest of the government should take the lessons from this debacle to heart and start putting more effort into communicating better, not just making a splash.

* * * FB and Twitter: @DrJennyO / Email: writerjennyo@gmail.com of a 10-minute outing she organized despite the poor air quality.

Air quality warnings

For the second time in just days the city has been forced to close sports fields and outdoor pools due to the smoke, whose smell lingers in the streets despite the closest fires being more than 600 kilometers away.

Buildings are shrouded and the sun is hard to see.

According to authorities, the air quality index oscillates between “harmful” and “very harmful.”

After several days of being stuck at home, Marin Vicck, 14, finally went out: “The air quality is terrible, to the point where it’s difficult to walk around because of the smoke. You feel trapped,” he said.

Kedjar Boudjema, whose son is four,

That holds true whether in the customary 100-day “honeymoon period” or even up to the end of the first year. So how does the Marcos Jr. administration stack up after its 365 days in office?

In our latest Saturday News Forum in Quezon City, we asked a political analyst from the Department of Political Science of the University of Santo Tomas to give us a fair assessment of political developments since Mr. Marcos assumed office a year ago.

At the outset, Prof. Froilan Calilung pointed out that the current administration’s strongest suit is its “very definite, very clear and specific direction when it comes to foreign policy.”

“And I think this is one thing that will really put the President in a very good position” because this represents a markedly different foreign policy stance from that of the Duterte administration.

“Filipinos are seeing a pivot as the country shifts toward the United States,” he said.

This “shows the President’s decisiveness to actually craft or carve his own direction in foreign policy.”

But it is in domestic policy that the university professor finds room for improvement.

He believes the President should be “more assertive” and “more aggressive” in convincing legislators to pass key legislative measures. After all, he has the supermajority in Congress.

Even as congressional support for the President’s priority bills appears to be proceeding at a less-than-ideal pace, the political analyst emphasized the administration’s programs, such as putting up the Kadiwa rolling stores to sell basic goods to the public at lower market prices and implementing the eGovPH to digitize government services, more than make up for the lack of adequate support from the legislative branch for his pet bills.

Professor Calilung also believes that despite challenges, the rule of law is actually being upheld and given due importance by the current dispensation. The rule of law is important, he empha- rate about products and services offered. Neither can we fathom the go-ahead by understudies at the DOT when, as it should be practiced, the product is presented for final approval before the launch.

The tourism department immediately expressed outrage and extreme disappointment at the use of non-original/ stock footage purporting to be scenes from the Philippines in the audio visual presentation prepared by the advertising firm that produced the video.

Or did they think perhaps that the foreign scenes were those breathing in the Philippines, the Land of the Morning with 114 million people from Batanes down to Tawi Tawi?

It speaks a lot of our philistinism when it comes to the Philippines we want our countrymen and foreigners to love.

Such ruthless racket, or, in the language of Senator Poe, an advertisement scam—whether the ad agency had been paid or not for its easy efforts is immaterial at this point.

And the DOT is now processing terminating its contract with the ad agency DDB Philippines, which the former used for the tourism branding campaign.

We are knocked out the ad agency blatantly failed to remember what college advertising students learned semester after semester before they get their diploma that there must be truth in advertising.

Truth in advertising is a maxim, an enforced concept of being truthful and accu- sized, because if the Philippines wants to invite foreign investments to come in droves into the country, this can never materialize if there is a perception of a breakdown in law and order.

Yet another area where Marcos Jr. appears to have had some success, he said, is in building good relations with mass media.

This, again, stands in marked contrast to the position of the previous administration, whose relations with the press had been characterized by “animosity.”

In short, “we are seeing a lot more freer media than before.” Calilung emphasized. After all is said and done, what grade would he give the president, someone from media asked.

The DOT, in a statement, has noted that DDB Philippines “has publicly apologized, taken full responsibility, and admitted in no uncertain terms, that non-original materials were used in their AVP, reflecting an abject failure to comply with their obligation/s under the contract and a direct contravention with the DOT’s objectives for the enhanced tourism branding, the DOT hereby exercises its right to proceed with termination proceedings against its contract with DDB.” employability and sustainability factors. Its rankings were based on metrics including academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, sustainability, employment outcomes, and an international research network.

Will see how the sun rises tomorrow.

Among Philippine schools, UP and Ateneo, among those in the global top 200 universities, received high scores in employer reputation.

UP got the highest regard among international employers at 136th, followed by Ateneo at 141st.

But the QS survey result did not mention the rise of another institution of higher learning in academic excellence, namely Mapua University.

We read about this development in another recent news report, but couldn’t recall in which broadsheet.

Well, he suggested, maybe 85 percent?

Mapua rises in university rankings

The good news for our institutions of higher learning is that the University of the Philippines has climbed from 412th to 404th in the World University Rankings for 2024 by global education specialists Quacquarelli Symonds (QS).

Four other Philippine universities made it to the list, with Ateneo de Manila ascending from 651-700th to 563rd and De La Salle rising from 801-1000th to 681-690th.

The University of Santo Tomas remained in 801-850th place, while the Cebu-based University of San Carlos entered the QS rankings for the first time in 1201-1400th place. Now in its 20th year, the QS World University Rankings is the world’s most consulted international university rankings on on air quality every day.

“I’m worried about his health,” he said of his son. “But at the same time it’s complicated not to go out with him at all.”

Asthma fears

In the capital Ottawa, where visibility was also very poor, Janet Hamill opted to take her two grandchildren, ages 2 and 11, out for ice cream early, before the smoke became too much.

“I’m taking them out early in the day and will get them back home before it gets really bad. The smoke has been hard on them, and me, so we’ve been staying indoors mostly,” she said, adding that they’ve all suffered bad headaches.

In any event, Mapua University appears to have adequately proven itself over the past decades in the various fields of engineering, with many of its graduates making a name for themselves in civil and mechanical engineering.

Mapua University, which was taken over by the Yuchengco family from the original owners, is now headed by Reynaldo Vea as its president.

Vea graduated summa cum laude from UP in 1971 and later pursued masteral and doctoral degrees in Naval Architecture, I think, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) before returning to UP as Dean of the College of Engineering.

Now he has successfully steered Mapua to the honor roll of best universities in the world—maybe not at the same level as of now with UP and Ateneo—but now poised to excel even more in the years ahead under his tutelage.

But more on this later.

(Email: ernhil@yahoo.com) wildfire season is only just beginning, after an early start. said he is discouraged by this succession of warnings over a few days. Phone in hand, he now consults his app

In a country where 10 percent of people suffer from asthma, many are worried about the long-term consequences of this exposure to toxic smoke.

Calls to Asthma Canada, a nonprofit that funds education and research on the respiratory disease, have almost doubled since the fires started in early May.

There could be many more days like these throughout the summer—authorities have warned that Canada’s peak

People “especially want to know what they can do to protect themselves,” its president, Jeff Beach, told AFP. Canada, which is warming faster than the rest of the planet due to its geographical location, has been confronted in recent years with extreme weather events whose intensity and frequency have been exacerbated by climate change. AFP

HONG Kong’s leader has called on eight overseas activists to turn themselves in a day after police put out bounties on them for violating the city’s national security law.

Police have offered rewards of HK$1 million ($128,000) each for information leading to the arrests of eight prominent democracy activists based abroad, accusing them of crimes such as subversion and collud- ing with foreign forces. City leader John Lee said Tuesday he supported the police action and called on the activists to surrender themselves.

“The only way to end their destiny of being an abscondee who will be pursued for life is to surrender,” Lee told reporters, adding they would otherwise “spend their days in fear”.

All eight fled Hong Kong after Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on the financial hub in 2020 to quell dissent after huge, sometimes violent pro-democracy protests in 2019 were quashed.

Lee called on the public to assist police, adding that even the activists’ “relatives and friends” could become informants.

The offer has been criticised by the United States, Britain and Australia -- countries where the wanted activists reportedly reside. AFP