Hyping Lacierda!

“So why do Palace officials like Lacierda continue to overestimate the influence of columnists... That sort of thinking persists in the administration because Mr. Aquino himself was to a large extent a product of hype engineered by some of the country’s most creative advertising, public relations and other mass communication experts who rallied to his campaign last year, mostly at their own expense.”

BY DAN MARIANO

During a Palace press briefing last week, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda was quoted saying at one point: “But these are all columnists—they have their own opinions, they have their own jaded view of certain events.”

From Merriam-Webster comes the following definition of “jaded”: 1: fatigued by overwork: exhausted; 2: made dull, apathetic, or cynical by experience or by surfeit .

What is the reason for Lacierda’s apparent antipathy toward writers who express personal opinion in the print media?

Well, the way the communications group of President Aquino sees it, columnists are responsible for the declining approval ratings of their boss.

Lacierda and company, however, credit columnists with far too much ability to shape public opinion. In fact, newspaper circulation figures have been suffering a sharp drop over the past two decades or so. The vast majority of Filipinos get to touch newspapers only when they buy fish.

So why do Palace officials like Lacierda continue to overestimate the influence of columnists?

More than the rumored infighting among the three factions in the Palace communications group is the notion that propaganda would be enough to reverse the drop in the President’s once-seemingly unassailable popularity.

That sort of thinking persists in the administration because Mr. Aquino himself was to a large extent a product of hype engineered by some of the country’s most creative advertising, public relations and other mass communication experts who rallied to his campaign last year, mostly at their own expense.

Those Noynoy boosters—which certainly included columnists—did so because they feared the return of an ex-president who had made the Philippines a global laughingstock or the rise of a realtor-turned-politico who evidently thought everybody had a price. Either of them was on the verge of capturing Malacañang until then-Senator Noynoy threw his hat in the ring.

Palace talking heads need to understand that true believers made up just one segment of the massive support that allowed Mr. Aquino to score one of the biggest margins of victory in Philippine presidential races. Moreover, his win would not have turned out to be a landslide were it not for the backroom deal that resulted in the shocking loss of his highly favored running mate.

As President, Mr. Aquino soon faced an expectant populace that could no longer be placated with platitudes, or even the vilification of his predecessor.

Filipinos expect action, performance and results—not much of which seems to be forthcoming from the administration. Why, Malacañang’s point man in Metro Manila cannot even ease, much less fix, traffic jams or stop killer buses from mowing down other road users.

What we have here is not just a failure to communicate, but more important a failure to live up to the people’s expectations. Whatever columnists have to say will not make up for the difference.