Madame Secretary

This former international flight attendant and travel agency boss finds herself having to work harder at the job because she is 1.)  A woman 2.) A Tulfo 3.) A friend and townmate of President Duterte.

One of three girls in a brood that includes seven boys, Tourism Secretary Wanda Corazon Tulfo Teo says her macho brothers like Mon, Erwin and Raffy are actually intimidated by her.

“Sa totoo lang, tingin sa akin fragile, pero takot sa akin ang mga kapatid kong lalaki (The the truth is, though people think I’m fragile, my brothers are scared of me),” says Secretary Teo.

Though only one of two women in the Cabinet and one of very few female tourism ministers in the world, Teo says she feels she’s tough enough for the demands of her job and the banana peels that go with it — just waiting for her to trip and fall.

“Everybody was saying that I got the position because of the Tulfo brothers but they didn’t know that I’ve been in this industry for 20 years. That’s why I want to prove to them that after I took over the Miss Universe beauty pageant in 2016, tourist arrivals continued to grow. I have had to work harder for them to know it’s not because I’m one of the Tulfos, but because tourism is my passion. From the very start, I’ve been in the tourism industry. I was a flight attendant with Air Niugini, flying domestic for a year and international for six years. After I resigned, I worked in my husband’s logging business but found it boring.”

Exposed to the industry as a flight attendant, she thus set up her own travel agency (Mt. Apo Travel and Tours) in Davao, where she was based. She handled inbound as well as outbound tours and later branched out to catering in-flight meals.

Aside from hard work, she also realized that good public relations was essential in the travel industry, and that being a woman is an asset in business negotiations.

 “It is easier to talk to your counterparts when you are a woman. Charm counts in breaking the ice,” smiles the 5-ft. 5-in. Davaoeña. “They cannot say no.”

Is this why she reportedly brings her own makeup artist whenever she travels? Because of the charm offensive?

“No!” she stresses. “I do my own makeup.”

“Why do I need to bring a makeup artist?” she continues. “I’m a former flight attendant, I’ve been doing my own makeup for years. That’s SOP for us. I like doing my own makeup when there’s a party or even when I’m a godmother at a wedding. Mas gusto ko yung makeup ko kasi simple (I prefer my own makeup because it’s simple).”

She pities one member of her staff who was pilloried for allegedly being her makeup artist and therefore non-essential in her official trips abroad.

According to Teo, the said tourism employee really was once a makeup artist for TV5, who she hired after he lost his job in the station. He, along with some other employees, was recommended to her by her brother Erwin.

She also doesn’t like it when critics label some members of the rank-and-file in her department as “non-essential.”

“It’s because of them that the Department of Tourism achieved its target of 6.4 million tourist arrivals for 2017. Who’s to say this one person’s job is not as important as the rest?”

Teo says in the past, “The same people traveled over and over again. They just park their suitcase in one corner when they arrive from one trip and then pick up another one for the next trip on the same day.”

She says she wanted to give more people in the department a chance to familiarize themselves with the department’s mandate, which is to bring in more tourists to the country — each of whom spends an average of $100 a day. To date, the country’s No. 1 tourist arrivals in terms of volume come from China.

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Wanda exhibits her toughness when she confirms that she may close Boracay to tourists later this year, sometime during the lean travel season from June to November, the so-called habagat months.

“I think we have to close it. Totally. Actually, we want to close Boracay for only two months, but if not, then probably six months. We’ve already talked to the stakeholders.

“Why close? Because the presence of tourists on the island when we demolish establishments violating the easement regulations will cause traffic. Second, we only have drainage facilities for rainwater but some hotels drain their waste water through this instead of through the Boracay sewage. So the Department of Tourism drainage line that is supposed to be only for rainwater and which empties out into the sea, nahaluan (is contaminated). Dirty.”

 Teo has forewarned all the hotels and resorts not to accept bookings during the period. “We will dig up roads because we want to know which establishments have illegal connections to our rainwater pipes,” she adds.

“Pag may nakakabit, tanggal ‘yan (If they’re illegally connected, they’ll be taken out).”

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Teo, who attends Catholic Mass daily and works six days a week, says her only regret is that she isn’t 40 years old anymore.

“Otherwise, my accomplishments would be triple. Triple,” she reiterates.

She targets eight million tourist arrivals for 2018, 600,000 more than the National Tourism Development Plan (NDTP) target. “Last year, the target of NDTP was 6.2 million, and we got 6.4 million tourists. As Secretary of Tourism, I really raise the target para habulin nila (so they will pursue it).”

She re-shuffled all directors posted in the different regions around the country, saying most have been in their posts since the “time of Tourism Secretary Joe Aspiras.”

“Because if you’ve been a regional director for years in one place, your tendency is you become complacent. But if you put somebody new, magtatrabaho yan, pasikat (he will work hard to show off). He will become more creative, more innovative.”

Living up to her second name (“Corazon”), Teo has also reached out to the lesser known stars in the department, the quiet unsung heroes, some of whom have never been abroad. “People look down on them kasi wala silang kapit (because they have no hold on the powers-that-be), they have been there for years but have never been promoted.”

 She denies she never called them “little” people, claiming those words were erroneously attributed to her.

Teo also makes time for as many invitations from stakeholders in the tourism industry, saying she remembers when her organization NAITAS could never succeed in inviting someone of Cabinet rank to its events.

She also likes to travel to lesser-known destinations in the Philippines, even in far-flung areas like Tuguegarao.

“There are many beautiful resorts in the Philippines that we have not yet discovered. That is my advocacy. When my term is over, I hope I will be remembered as somebody who developed underdeveloped destinations in the Philippines.”

A tough job but Wanda Corazon Teo isn’t just a Tulfo. She’s a woman.