Strike Two for slogans

Published by the Visayan Daily Star Publications, Inc.

NINFA R. LEONARDIA Editor-in-Chief & President

CARLA P. GOMEZ Editor GUILLERMO TEJIDA III Desk Editor PATRICK PANGILINAN Busines Editor NIDA A. BUENAFE Sports Editor RENE GENOVE Bureau Chief, Dumaguete MAJA P. DELY Advertising Coordinator

CARLOS ANTONIO L. LEONARDIA Administrative Officer

Filipinos have often taken pride in their ingenuity, their ability to innovate or create that have gained recognition for them in other parts of the world. They also have distinct ways of describing incidents or naming events.

Why, then, do our people in the Department of Tourism, an agency that is responsible for calling attention to our country and what it has to offer, have to resort to aping what others have already adopted in the past to use as a slogan for our tourism campaign?

It has not happened only once, but twice in succession. Last year, the slogan proudly announced by the then Tourism secretary, immediately got denounced for being an almost exact copy of what Poland was already using. Thankfully, that was rejected almost immediately, never mind the millions of pesos that had already gone into the printing of posters, tarpaulin and other gimmicks to display it.

And now comes another boo-boo, a worse one, because it is not only similar, but an exact copy of a slogan already used by Switzerland more than six decades ago. The fact that it was introduced that far away in the past should not be an excuse. Is plagiarism excusable if not committed by writers? Why, we are even running after a Supreme Court Justice who had copied from an international decision when he penned his ruling on the case of the Filipino sex slaves!

The introduction of the slogan that President Aquino, probably clueless about the Switzerland model, has reportedly approved, could not have come at a more unfortunate time when the international group called Reporters without Borders has just described the Philippines as “No man’s land for media” and the United States still lists it as “dangerous and unstable”.

Are we referring to the kind of fun that kinky people want? Our Tourism people should try not to stamp on their own toes everytime they take a step.*