Of love and loathe

“Love” was not meant to be, says Senator Nancy Binay – with pun intended – on the Department of Tourism (DOT)’s “Love the Philippines” slogan which hogged international headlines for all the wrong reasons.

“Huwag nang ipilit. Hindi masama ang magkamali. Tanggapin na lang natin na hindi meant to be ang LOVE. Move on na tayo at ibalik na lang ang FUN in the Philippines,” says the senator, with her trademark wit and humor.

Translated loosely: Let’s not push it. It’s time to accept that love was not meant to be. Let’s move on and bring back the fun instead.

And then there’s Business Mirror’s Stella Arnaldo who, in just two lines, illustrated in her column last week just how silly the slogan is. And vague, and hilarious and drab.

Says the veteran journalist:

Tourist: So, why should I visit the Philippines?

DOT: Because, Love the Philippines!

What a funny capture of the silliness of it all. Wait til you hear Stella actually say it in her shrill voice. It’s more fun.

Writing about slogans, Manny Gonzalez, owner of Mactan, Cebu’s Plantation Bay Resort & Spa, also makes a very good point on the use of love in a slogan.

“‘Love’ is, without any doubt, the most over-used and trite word in every language. We love our parents, partners, children, Oreos, sunsets, God, Disneyland. Love means so much, it means NOTHING. Consider how persuasive you would find Love Nike or Love Lay’s.”

Albay Rep. Joey Salceda early on aired his disappointment over the non-inclusion of the famed Mayon Volcano in the controversial video. Bicol-based reader Alex Serrano echoed Salceda’s frustration, saying that Mayon, with its near perfect cone, isn’t just Albay’s pride but the pride of the whole country.

Indeed, much has been said about the DOT’s tourism slogan. As for me, I believe that even without the mess, Love the Philippines is just not convincing enough and neither is it fun.

Frasco’s fiasco

Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia Frasco’s apologists say it is time the public forgives the secretary for this fiasco. Stop whining and move on. Critics have made a mountain out of a molehill, they said. It was a mistake and that’s that.

Her mother, she who shamed doctors for criticizing her tuob antidote against COVID-19 during the pandemic, has spoken, too.

“Don’t mess with us,” says Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia as quoted by GMA-7.

But perhaps for many Filipinos, it’s not that easy to let this pass, because there’s really lots of love to begin with. We all love the Philippines, don’t we?

Even the thieves in power all profess love for the country. Every politico claims to love this nation of 114 million; even the Philippine Senate’s lover boy cited his love for Filipinos to justify why he groomed his handlebar mustache during a Senate hearing.

So imagine the frustration of many when our very own DOT couldn’t even get it right.

You talk about loving the Philippines with a P49-million tab and proudly unveil a video of what makes our country so beautiful but as it turned out, some of the sceneries weren’t even our own. What a joke.

It’s not surprising that out of this love came loathe, frustration and disappointment.

The DOT should be held accountable – all the way to the top – for this mess. It’s called command responsibility. It’s not enough that the advertising agency, DDB Philippines, is left to take all the blame.

Questions remain. Who gave the final approval for the video? Was it posted without authorization? Was it unveiled prematurely? Was it edited or re-edited? Who were the other people involved?

I wonder, too, about the extent of the role of the DOT event organizer, Atmosphere Events Inc. I saw vignettes of the June 27 DOT unveiling, including videos of the internal stakeholders’ meeting, posted on Atmosphere’s social media account.

It would be good for the DOT to get to the bottom of it all and let the public know.

This mess also shows the importance of choosing a really competent man – or woman – to head our Tourism department. The DOT portfolio is just as important as any other Cabinet portfolio but it seems that we don’t take this seriously enough. It’s so much more than just being able to don a Filipinana or a Barong Tagalog with ease.

Until the DOT can fully explain everything that happened, maybe there’s no moving on just yet.

It doesn’t really help that Sec. Frasco has decided to go on vacation overseas amid the whole fiasco. #LeavethePhilippines trended immediately after the announcement.

The memes continue as Filipinos have turned to humor once more as we usually do when things get messy. There’s no lack of jokes about it.

My favorite is from Professional Heckler, a vocal political critic on social media.

“Amid all the hullabaloo over the Marcos administration’s new tourism campaign, Sen. Lito Lapid released a statement suggesting to instead use, ‘Wow, It’s more fun! Love, the Philippines’ a mash-up of previous and recent DOT proposed slogans. The statement amused millions of Filipinos who were surprised to know Lito Lapid was still a senator.”

That gave me a good laugh. Even funnier was the reaction of seemingly perplexed readers to Professional Heckler’s post.

Of course, Lito Lapid is still very present in our society, they said.

“You see him in Batang Quiapo every night!”

It really is more fun in the Philippines.

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Email: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @eyesgonzales. Column archives at EyesWideOpen on FB.