THREE in one! Buy one take three! Triple treat! The offer was too good to resist kicking up a three-way conversation. Three p.r.o.’s (public relations officers) of the newsiest personalities in town together at one table and they were sitting in front of me, at a casual dinner that had nothing to do with the hottest news of the week.
Here’s how the conversation went. Cherie Mijares, whose agency bagged the Miss Universe in Manila media-p.r. project, was all smiles when I asked if next year’s pageant will happen again in Manila. She beamed, “That’s the talk. They loved Manila.” Next, Rochelle Gamboa, corporate communications head of Light Rail Manila Corp., said there was “definitely no conflict of interest” in the case of Babes Singson wearing the LRMC hat as president just a few months after he stepped down as DPWH secretary. I turned to Dulce Baybay, chief of the Lopez Group Foundation, to inquire how DENR Secretary Gina Lopez was handling the furor over her order to close 23 mines and cancel 75 projects. Dulce exclaimed, with pride, “She’s handling it very well, by herself!”
The three ladies were not there for a third-degree, they were simply playing host with other members of the board of PRSP (Public Relations Society of the Philippines) to talk about their Anvil Awards, to be given on March 10 to the 300 best p.r. programs and tools (such as magazines, books, exhibits and the like). In the Philippine setting, p.r. has 50 shades of gray areas, especially where it concerns political p.r., but compared with journalism as a college degree, the common belief is that p.r. earns more money and more easily. True or not, the most successful p.r. practitioners combine a bit of writing, philosophy (as Aristotle taught, magnify virtue and minimize flaws), and Dale Carnegie.
Relating with the public doesn’t sound like a job for wallflowers, so what does p.r. involve? The answer is in the business card of Jones Campos, ex-Globe who runs his own firm and appends APR (Accredited in Public Relations) after his name: “public relations, media relations, community relations, corporate communications, crisis management, events management, pr/market research, advertising, lectures, publications, photography, music, agribusiness, food, tourism, sports.” (Jullie Y. Daza)
