i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...

T H E C A M P A I G N
Presidential Makeover
ELLEN TORDESILLAS
WHEN TV and newspapers
carried images
of President Gloria
Macapagal-Arroyo
and some members of her family
taking a Sunday morning stroll
along Baywalk on Roxas Boulevard
last July, those who had
witnessed the dying days of the
Marcos regime were reminded
of a presidential family photo in
1985, showing the Marcoses relaxing
on Malacañang grounds.
The Arroyos’ Baywalk stroll
and the Marcoses’ Malacañang
garden picnic both tried to give the
impression that they were spontaneous,
casual activities. In reality,
however, both were well-planned,
serious undertakings that were
part of high-budget communication
plans hatched with the help
of international public-relations
companies.
During the critical Marcos
years, Black, Manafort, Stone
and Kelly was directing the show.
This time around, Arroyo is being
helped by Burson-Marsteller, a
leading global communications
company that lists among its
capabilities, crisis and issues
management, reputation management,
and media relations.
For what could be as high as $2
million, the president is getting
a service that Press Secretary
Ignacio Bunye says is aimed
primarily at communicating “to
international audiences that the
economic team is promoting economic
reform and actively managing
a growing economy.”
Bunye, however, says Burson-Marsteller
does not advise
“on the president’s image, (and)
neither are they involved in domestic
communication issues.”
It was in fact the late Benigno
‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr.’s sister,
director Lupita Kashiwahara,
who hovered over the Arroyos at
Baywalk and gave instructions on
each shot. But as a local publicrelations
expert points out, even
if Burson-Marsteller is supposed
to ensure a good international
image for the Arroyo administration,
that would still mean it has
to help package the president for
the Filipino audience.
That could be a real challenge.
Since 2001, when she took over
ousted President Joseph ‘Erap’
Estrada, Gloria Arroyo has undergone
so many makeovers she
could make Oprah Winfrey’s head
spin. From Iron Lady to Dolorous
Mother of the Nation, Arroyo has
done it all. Yet the president still
can’t seem to connect with the
public, especially the masa, and
often ends up being perceived as
insincere.
Indeed, when her foreign PR
consultants sat down with her early
last year, “lacking in charisma”
and “perceived as untrustworthy”
topped their list of her liabilities.
Husband Mike Arroyo was also a
negative factor, they said.
On the plus side were her being
an economist and her unassuming
only daughter, Lourdes Evangeline,
better known as Luli.
It may seem precious dollars
were wasted for an assessment
that could have been obtained free
in coffeeshops. Although Roberto R.
Romulo, presidential adviser for international
competitiveness, denies
the supposed $2 million price tag for
Burson-Marsteller’s services, local
PR people say it’s not unheard of for
a hotshot global PR firm. Says one
public-relations executive: “I imagine
that (Burson-Marsteller) would be
charging the Arroyo premium rate
considering that it includes crisis
management.”
In 2002, when Burson-Marsteller’s
ties with the Arroyo administration
first became public, Presidential
Management Staff head
Rigoberto Tiglao said its fee was
$800,000 for a one-year contract
paid by a group of businessmen.
In any case, Arroyo’s business
relationship with Burson-Marsteller
allowed the consultants to be frank
with her, something no Palace official
would dare do. A Malacañang
insider says Arroyo just listened as
the foreign PR experts talked.
Apparently, her domestic handlers
had their ears pressed
against the wall. Even if Burston-
Marsteller’s assessment was for
a PR campaign abroad, Arroyo’s
local team used it to craft her
political strategy. Mike Arroyo
deliberately kept a low profile
during the election campaign.
Luli, meanwhile, was featured in
at least two of the president’s
campaign ads, with mother and
daughter talking about leadership
and governance.
Last June, as the twin issues
of jueteng and election fraud were
pummeling the president, Burson-Marsteller
representatives
discussed with some Cabinet members
ways to promote a “soft image”
for Arroyo. Social Services Secretary
Dinky Soliman submitted her “Bright
Child” campaign aimed at producing
healthier, brighter Filipinos with
programs starting from prenatal
care to high school education. Soliman
resigned on July 8, along with
nine other key officials. On July 29,
Arroyo launched the “Bright Child”
campaign, followed two days later
by a breastfeeding project.
Soliman says the foreign consultants
had also suggested a
more prominent role for Luli. Sure
enough, after the Baywalk stroll,
the First Daughter was interviewed
on TV and in newspapers
and was soon being called her
mother’s “secret weapon.”
But Luli is not the only family
member Arroyo has mobilized to
win the public over. In her speeches
and inter views nowadays,
Arroyo often invokes the memory
of her father, the late President
Diosdado Macapagal. “I talk to
my father, ‘Dad, please intercede
with God for me,’ “she said in a
recent TV interview.
Toddler Evie, daughter of Arroyo’s
younger son Dato and his
wife, Kakai, has also been popping
up in presidential photo ops.
Just recently, the Palace released
a picture of her straying into her
grandmother’s office while the
president was having a meeting.
A smiling president had cuddled
the child at Baywalk, and later at
nearby Aristocrat restaurant, where
the family stopped for a bite.
“She is now smiling a lot,”
says Campaigns Advocacy and
PR’s Ramon R. Osorio. He says
there has been a marked improvement
in Arroyo since her
disastrous “I am sorry” speech.
Osorio says it’s fortunate that her
favorite color is blue, which lightens
her otherwise steely aura.
Arroyo, however, used to relish
her Iron Lady persona, which she
has donned a few times in the last
four years. One of her first images
as president was as a Tough Mama,
perhaps to compensate for her lack
of an electoral mandate. “Strike
now so I can crush you,” she had
dared Estrada’s followers, who took
up her challenge and tried to storm
Malacañang on May 1, 2001.
“Isang bala ka lang (You’ll fall with
just one bullet),” she taunted Abu
Sayyaf bandits. Tons of bullets and
millions of dollars in U.S. aid later, the
bandits have become terrorists.
For a time, Arroyo seemed unfazed.
To underscore her fight against
crime, she posed with criminal suspects
in the Palace. When a notorious
convict was slain, she motored
to Cavite to have her picture taken
viewing the fly-infested corpse.
The public, however, remained
unimpressed. And so she turned
into “Ina ng Bayan” asking for the
people’s help. She also became a
tricycle-riding Ate Glo who even went
to market in flip-flops.
But the image she is most comfortable
with is as a working president.
As a strict chief executive, she
scolded officials in front of TV cameras.
Today the working-president
image has been resurrected, but
she has not snapped at an underling
in public since the controversy
over the tapes broke out.
Admittedly hardworking, Arroyo
has been doing overtime in trying
to make herself more appealing to
Filipinos. At the beginning of her
unelected presidency, she held a
weekly press conference telecast
live. Her messages, however, were
often overshadowed by her smirks,
frowns, and dismissive replies
when provoked with questions not
to her liking.
She tried weekly lunches with
small groups of reporters without
TV cameras, and then a radio program
every Saturday. Neither lasted
long. Malacañang tapped actresssinger
Jolina Magdangal to host
the “The Working President” on
government-controlled TV stations.
But Arroyo continued to post dismal
approval and trust ratings.
Ironically, Arroyo has the
most competent media team
ever assembled in post-Marcos
Malacañang. It is headed by two
ex-journalists, Bunye and Tiglao.
Cabinet Secretary Ricardo Saludo
is also a former journalist.
Since August 2004, there
has also been the Office of Communications
Director, which has
a Crisis Communicating Team “to
assist in meeting extraordinary issues.”
But when the “Hello Garci”
issue exploded, Arroyo imported
Kashiwahara from San Francisco.
When that still wasn’t enough,
Mai Jimenez, who took charge
of media for the Arroyo camp
during the 2004 polls, re-entered
the scene. Last July 5, Jimenez
presented a communication plan
meant not to makeover Arroyo but
to “stress on programs, projects
and reforms to show that the
government is committed.”
Before the current crisis, Arroyo
had scheduled foreign trips
starting with Hong Kong and
Singapore to sell what she called
“an economy about to take off.”
She pushed through with the
Hong Kong leg in June, but all they
wanted to hear from her there was
about the “Hello, Garci” tapes.
The Singapore visit, scheduled
for July, was moved to August.
It has since been postponed
indefinitely. Says a foreign affairs
official: “What is she going to tell
foreign investors when she doesn’t
even know if she is going to make
it to the end of the year?”
And that’s why Burson-Marsteller,
Arroyo’s PR for an international
audience, should and
could be concerned as well with
her domestic survival.
10 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT