Wanted: A new DoT Secretary

note on which to end her thoroughly counterproductive tenure as head of the DoT.

From an outsider’s point of view, the struggle most Do secretaries have had in marketing the Philippines to attract visitors is confusing. The entire country is essentially a tourist attraction; it should be an easy job to sell it. From an economic perspective, tourism is not a perfect economic driver— like anything else, it has some negative effects that have to be accounted for—but it is a very good one, especially for a country like the Philippines in its current state. The ratio of potential return to the amount of effort needed to realize it is very positive. It is a good option, even as just a short- to medium- term plan, for economic development in local communities; if handled correctly, tourism can bring in a useful revenue stream while longer-term development is pursued.

The job of Do secretary should be to attract visitors to the country and direct them to the areas where their spending will do the most good according to the economic planning agenda of the government, and to encourage domestic tourism in line with that same agenda. The marketing part of the job is really of secondary importance, and can be delegated to competent subordinates; the real priority for the Do secretary is management and coordination, ef - ernment’s bigger economic picture, whatever it happens to be.

Wanda Teo seems to have never demonstrated even the slightest awareness of the importance of her job, and while it would be fruitless to try to estimate the lost opportunity costs from her lack of performance, the amount is almost certainly a lot more than the P60 million her family seems to have creatively taken from the DoT budget.

Instead what we’ve gotten is Wanda Teo heralding grossly misleading tourism statistics (and quickly getting called out on it by netizens capable of doing simple math); Wanda Teo promoting a bizarre and completely inappropriate underwater resort plan for Coron (the plan was fortunately withdrawn after a storm of protest erupted); Wanda taking her makeup artist with her he was her “executive assistant”); Wanda Teo agreeing with the sixmonth shutdown plan for Boracay, and then promptly publicly undercutting it by saying she was aiming for the rehabilitation to be done in three or four months, and that she was aiming to have the reopened island host the Miss Universe pageant next year.

The DoT secretary can point to higher tourist arrival numbers as proof that her department is doing its job. That has been the default metric of DoT performance since the not good enough; especially not in circumstances where the average Filipino’s knowledge of the work of the DoT consists of what he or she has heard about whatever controversy the department’s chief gotten herself into this time.

The DoT secretary is supposed to promote and develop tourism for the Philippines, not promote and develop media exposure for the DoT secretary. Wanda Teo was handed the DoT portfolio at a time when Philippine tourism was on the verge of a breakout in terms of business expansion. It still seems to be in that position now, which is fortunate—at least Teo’s tenure hasn’t resulted in a serious setback—but that still means nearly two years of opportunity has been lost. Tourism is important enough to be handled with professional competence and energy; the department needs a leader with those qualities now.