Surot, rats, and Taylor Swift

OH, Taylor, Taylor, Taylor. Why do you disappoint Filipinos so? First you pull a face at Jo Koy’s dig versus the NFL during the Golden Globes (which you thought was against you, naturally), then your perform only in Singapore for your Eras Tour, despite all the other Southeast Asian countries you could have visited as well. (How easy you forget how your Pinoy fans excitedly received you when you performed in Manila in 2014 during your Red Tour. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.)

But it’s hilarious how some Filipino lawmakers are so mad at the Singapore government for striking an exclusive deal with Swift to perform only there, shutting out the Philippines and its other Asean neighbors. According to the Japan Times, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was unapologetic about the deal, which some of our local lawmakers described as unneighborly. Lee said: “It has turned out to be a very successful arrangement. I don’t see that as being unfriendly.” (tinyurl.com/mw3wwk5j)

Japan Times also reports that Singapore paid Swift from government funds specially alloted to rebuild the city-state’s tourism industry after Covid-19 wreaked havoc across the globe, preventing international travel. As per previously published news reports, that Covid reconstruction fund amounted to S$500 million, or almost P21 billion. In contrast, the Philippine government has alloted this year just P1.3 billion for branding and tourism promotion under the Department of Tourism and its marketing arm, the Tourism Promotions Board. Toink!

So our Swiftie politicos shouldn’t blame Singapore for their brilliant marketing coup. It was purely a business decision, and they reaped the rewards in turn. There is no estimate how many more tourists arrived in Singapore during Swift’s six days of concerts there, and how much it earned in terms of increased hotel and restaurant revenues, but one can safely assume that its tourism industry is more than satisfied with the outcome.

(In Manila, Cebu Pacific renumbered its flight 5J813 to Singapore 5J 1989, after one of Swift’s albums, as most of the passengers were supposed to be watching Swift’s concerts. That’s a 236-seater plane, which flew for six days, ferrying over 1,400 Swifties on that specific flight alone. Add to that CEB’S other Manilasg flights, as well as its Cebu-singapore service, along with flights by other Philippine carriers—that’s probably over 50,000 Pinoys who went to watch Swift’s concerts in Singapore.)

Meanwhile, Singapore’s former Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Bilahari Kausikan ridiculed the criticism Singapore received from other countries over the Swift deal. In a Facebook post, he said, “Sour grapes. Whenever I hear calls for Singapore to be more ‘sensitive’ to others in Southeast Asia, it really means be as inefficient as they are .... What’s to have stopped any Southeast Asia country from negotiating an exclusivity deal with her if they had thought of it?”

He hits the nail on the head. Not only are our tourism promotion funds severely inadequate, we lack any brilliant marketing plans to sell the Philippines abroad. Concerts, for instance, fall under Meetings, Incentive tours, Conferences, Exhibitions, collectively known as MICE. And yet to this day, according to my sources among MICE organizers and venue hosts, the DOT has yet to reveal its revised Philippines MICE Roadmap 2030 to help lift the sector.

Again, in contrast, Singapore published a MICE Sustainability Roadmap even before global pandemic restrictions were lifted. In fact, while the Philippines was still grappling with its community quarantines and alert levels, Singapore was already hosting MICE events in 2021 and implemented a simple Covidtracking mobile app for guests. The Philippines’s first in-person MICE event was the World Travel and Tourism Council’s Global Summit in April 2022, which attracted some 650 delegates and over 1,000 online participants.

Unfortunately, the government’s tourism marketing program consists of a lame new slogan, which forces foreigners to “Love the Philippines” even before they’ve visited; Bisita Be My (BBM) Guest, which tries to entice Filipinos abroad to bring in their extended family and friends by raffling off local tours and condo units; joining international travel trade fairs while officials had lawmakers and family members in tow, while forgetting to provide our private sector sellers unique giveaways for foreign buyers, to name a few. (It’s already a given that overseas Pinoys will come home for a visit; but there is no way to measure how many Fil-ams had actually brought home, say, mainstream Americans who would have otherwise not considered the Philippines as a tourism destination.)

And while it’s certainly admirable that government is building clean rest rooms and souvenir stops across the country, or connecting our islands to the world with stronger Internet so our guests can immediately post videos of their enjoyable trips across social media, we have bed bugs and rats at the Naia. To be fair, DOT had already turned over those rattan chairs to the Manila International Airport Authority, which should have properly maintained them. But alas, that has always been the problem of our government. So, good luck when those tourist rest areas are turned over to the local governments. Let’s see how long the rest rooms remain clean.

When I saw the video of that rat scurrying across the ceiling of Naia-3, I immediately thought that perhaps the Office of Transporation Security had been hiring new personnel. Or it’s probably another Immigration Officer on her way to escort another VIP guest to his flight. Seriously, it’s bad enough our government lacks any solid and measureable tourism marketing plan, but incompetence and corruption at the Naia aggravates the situation. Except for Jakarta and Manila, in other Southeast Asian capitals, immigration officers quickly stamp an arriving tourist through, and even on the latter’s departure there are no airport personnel waiting to rifle through the tourist’s bags or luggage to see what can be stolen.

If you could speak with tourism veterans in the private sector, those who were selling the Philippines as far back as the 1960s, they would say the country was a major destination in Asia. (Remember that German tourists were even the ones who discovered Boracay in the 1970s, way before we Filipinos did.) We can achieve this level of visibility again when you have competent government officials with great tourism instincts in place, and support the private sector not just with funds but also by enabling policies that will help them do their jobs. ■