Public relations triumph
May 22nd, 2003
The Arroyo state visit to the United States is a public relations triumph for both guest and host, as both had most likely hoped and anticipated. The public relations bonanza it is reaping for Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and George W. Bush indeed suggests that as state visits go, this one was not so much meant to firm up relations between their two countries but to serve each other’s domestic agendas.
As both presidents said, U.S.-Philippine relations have never been as strong as today, thanks to Mrs. Arroyo’s unconditional support for U.S. global policy, particularly its “war on terrorism” and the attack on and occupation of Iraq. The state visit was thus only a public demonstration of the restoration during Arroyo’s watch of the Philippines’ long history as a U.S. client.
But from the minute Malacañang announced Arroyo’s visit, many observant Filipinos had suggested that it was something she and her government needed. Mrs. Arroyo’s low approval ratings, the galloping poverty that she had pledged to diminish during her watch, the country’s peace and order problems, and the general sense of decay and drift that afflict much of the population could be helped only by a dramatic media event. The visit fit the bill perfectly.
Any public relations practitioner knows that to deflect attention from issues that create negative public perceptions, but about which one is either unwilling or unable to do anything, a client needs to focus in his or her strengths. Mrs. Arroyo’s main strength has so far been her capacity to pander to popular biases, particularly to the pro-Americanism rampant among a citizenry among whom a majority would live in the United States if given the choice, and to that same citizenry’s anti-Muslim sentiments.
An indication of the importance Mrs. Arroyo attached to her visit was her order on the eve of her departure for the United States for the military to attack the terrorists supposedly “embedded” in the MILF. The order was calculated not only to win brownie points at home among the majority Christian population eager to see the armed Muslim groups destroyed, but also to ensure that Bush’s enthusiasm would glow sufficiently for its expression to be reported back to the Philippines via the impressed and impressionable media people with the Arroyo entourage.
Mrs. Arroyo or her P.R. handlers knew that the enthusiasm with which she would be greeted, and the warmth as well as promises of aid and other rewards Bush would demonstrate, would please the vastly pro-American Philippine public, perhaps enough for it to forget her failings in governance.
What has so far happened has exceeded her best hopes. Bush has not only promised military and economic aid (provided, however, that U.S. processes—i.e., U.S. congressional review and approval—are satisfied); he also pulled out all the stops to make sure that the U.S. media gave the visit the kind of coverage they reserve for the heads of state of major powers. The Philippine media have noted it as well, and have expectedly issued the expected reports gushing over the quality of the china, the food and the entertainment to which Mrs. Arroyo and company were treated during the other night’s White House state dinner to convince those back home that the Philippines still has an important place in the hearts of U.S. presidents.
The eyes of any Filipino with the stars and stripes in his or her unreformed brain are likely to water at the thought that his or her president is considered important enough for such treatment—described as “royal” by one overenthusiastic Filipino reporter. It is after all the lot of every colonial to long for the approval of those he secretly believes are his betters, and most Filipinos are no exception, and are in fact the exemplars in their eagerness to be told they’re acceptable in the best circles of the metropolitan power.
The Arroyo visit is thus likely to have a most favorable impact on the next Social Weather Stations or Pulse Asia survey on her approval rating.
Filipinos may have to queue for water, barricade themselves behind closed doors for fear of thieves and murderers, or even beg in the streets for their next meal, but a warm welcome for their president beats piped-in water and a minimum wage job any day. So huge is the public relations dividend this visit is likely to reap for Mrs. Arroyo that she could conceivably think it enough for her to be elected in 2004—and to announce any day now that she’s changing her mind, she’s running for president after all.
But if Gloria Macapagal needed this trip for domestic reasons, George W. Bush needed it as well, and for almost the same reason. Unlike Mrs. Arroyo, who has announced that she’s not running in 2004 but is likely to be persuaded to go back on her promise, Bush is definitely running in the same year.
Like Mrs. Arroyo, with whom he shares several things in common, Bush’s special Achilles’ heel is domestic affairs, particularly the economy, which in the short span of two years he has brought to ruin. Bush has widespread and record approval as a “wartime” president, a myth fostered by the war on terror and the attack on Iraq, but basement level ratings as far as his handling of the U.S. economy is concerned.
As Bill Clinton said on the eve of his campaign for a second term in 1996, “it’s the economy, stupid”—meaning it’s how the U.S. electorate perceives the economy is being run that wins elections. Unfortunately for Bush the perception is not likely to favor his reelection in 2004.
Industrial production in the U.S. was down half a percent last March, the second straight month that the output of U.S. factories had fallen, and the worst decline in three months. Consumer confidence also dropped to the lowest it has ever been in the last ten years, while nearly half a million more U.S. workers—in addition to the two million who have already lost their jobs since Bush took over—were laid off in March and April.
The U.S. budget deficit, which Bush’s voodoo economic policies created from the trillion dollar surplus of the Clinton years, is expected to rise from $304 billion to $307 billion by next year, even as that figure could increase to over $400 billion should the U.S. shoulder the entire cost of the reconstruction of Iraq.
Following the same P.R. principle of emphasizing his strengths on the global front in the hope that it will deflect attention from his weaknesses at home, George W. Bush and his handlers saw the visit of the President of the Philippines, whose importance he boosted by declaring the country a major non-NATO U.S. ally, as potentially significant to his reelection.
The Arroyo visit and the corresponding media coverage it encouraged must be seen in the context of the U.S. electorate’s support for the war on terrorism and the attack on Iraq. Mrs. Arroyo’s presence and her statements supportive of both suggest that Bush is winning, or is about to win, other victories in that war, specifically in its “second front” the Philippines, where the depredations of the Abu Sayyaf and its supposed though unproven links to al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islami’ya have convinced many Americans they have a security interest. More than anything else, however, it also suggests that far from being isolated from the international community, the U.S. under Bush’s guidance is on the contrary winning allies all over the world, even if they powers as middling as Eritrea and the Philippines.
Bush’s military strategists are of course also thinking of Indonesia, the one place in Asia where the U.S. believes Islamic militants are “embedded” among the world’s largest Muslim population. With its Christian majority, its vastly pro-American population, and a government apparently willing to do anything for the United States including violate its own Constitution, the Philippines is the logical staging ground for any U.S. force deployment in Southeast Asia including Indonesia.
That consideration explains the continuing emphasis in Bush and company’s official statements on “joint exercises” by U.S. troops with Philippine soldiers, which incidentally will assure U.S. forces a continuing presence in the Philippines under the terms of the Visiting Forces Agreement and the Mutual Logistics Support Agreement, in effect providing the U.S. under another name the very same military bases the Philippine Constitution prohibits.
Bush’s motives are clear, or should be clear to anyone aware of U.S. strategic interests as well as Bush’s own need for reelection. What’s not clear are Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s motives. Right now those motives seem to consist of nothing more far-sighted than getting a few aging helicopters and spare parts from the U.S., but also quite probably, winning in 2004. Base as these motives may be, they are important enough for any Filipino politician to have unconditionally committed the Philippines to U.S. interests as Arroyo has.
(abs-cbnNEWS.com, May 22, 2003)