Since the bungled tourism campaign ad became viral, content creators, including scheming politicos, have since renamed the promo ad to ‘Rob the Philippines,’ a tongue in cheek but oblique representation of how the bureaucracy has smelled after the brouhaha.

But the nagging aspect of this humiliation—no thanks to tourism secretary Ma. Esperanza Garcia-Frasco—is her statement to retain the ‘Love the Philippines’ slogan which rightly belongs to DDB Group Philippines, the now maligned ad agency that conceived the promo ad. Why in the world must Frasco use DDB’s campaign tagline if it has announced its contract terminated? Worse, in a recent speech, she even used it as a parting phrase.

As the secretary’s name would have suggested hope (i.e., esperanza), the entire debacle is undermining the country’s tourism direction, a fact that has pushed some sectors to drumbeat for the immediate resignation of Frasco, for reason of delicadeza, as a result the fiasco.

This recent debacle, besides, does not speak well on how the President’s minions are performing. In fact, after a year in office, the incumbent administration has been dragged to the edge, in most part due to the ignorance, inefficiency, and even the failure to its bureaucrats to handle challenges in the face of serious political undercurrents.

Here’s the 13 ‘mortal sins’ hounding the Marcos sway in the last 13 months: (i) sugar export mess, (ii) onion smuggling, (iii) Percy Lapid case, (iv) Negros Oriental massacre, (v) national police participation in the P6.7-billion shabu haul, (vi) Gadon’s disbarment (viii) the tourism promo ruckus, (ix) the international criminal court (ICC) probe, (x) the divisive Maharlika Bill, (xi) the massive human smuggling, (xii) the NBI detainee outrage, and (xiii) the P14.1-T national debt.

A closer look, though, at some of the cardinal issues magnifies the public perception that next to leadership inadequacy and poor management focus, the country is losing much of its resources to the robbers that now control most of our departments. This sad commentary is further puffed up when the issues are piecemeal put under the legislative microscope.

Moreover, the taxpayers, are subjected to arbitrary and capricious manipulations by the government agencies that are directed at the instance of individuals who smear public service as a matter of purpose and personal aggrandizement.

Carl Sagan, the eminent scientist, was right in saying: “One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.”

George Carlin, an American author and social critic, meanwhile, was also right when we understand that life’s misery is the handiwork of those who identify themselves as public servants:

“Forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They own you. They own everything. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations that’ve long since bought and paid for, the senate, the congress, the state houses, the city halls, they got the judges in their back pocket, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all of the news and the information you get to hear. They got you by the balls. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They don’t want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that. That doesn’t help them.”

With a bureaucracy consistently being fed to the canines (by the lapdogs) in the last half a century, the campaign promo ‘Rob the Philippines!’ should fit the country’s present standing. (PMT)