Remembering

It is All Soul's Day, or almost, and I remember colleagues in PR practice who have been gone all these many years.

One was Emcy Corteza-Tinsay, who was a lawyer first, but took up PR as her life's work. She owned and managed a PR firm, Business Relations International. Elegant and charming, she had numerous contacts in government and business, and counseled firms in the sugar, embroidery and apparel and other industries. Emcy was the first lady president of the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (1973-1974) and was its guiding hand until she died. She also served as corporate secretary of Philippine Advertising Counselors.

Shortly after we started our own PR agency in 1989, when we scarcely had any Clients, Emcy called me and said, "O, you help me. We are organizing the Air Safety Foundation and my friend, (Capt.) Bobby Lim, would like to use some PR. Come..." And we did, and had a good rewarding time with that, and other projects with Emcy. One thing this lady pointed out to me was, be proud of your corporate identity. "Put in your logo anywhere you decently can. That represents you and what you stand for."

Tony Vasquez was a whiz kid in PR. He worked at Citibank and other financial institutions before he put up his own PR agency, The Word, in the 1980s. He was very active in initiating moves to improve bank marketing and communications as a professional discipline. Tony knew so many things, corporate and marketing and events, and philosophy. His mind was so active that when you talked to him, you had to be all ears, because he would go from communications audit--which I had not heard of-- to media relations and what the other guys in PR were up to. But he was generous, with advice and good word for others. I offered to publish any book on Philippine PR that he might care to write-- he had been in PR work since 1962--, but he never got around to it. Tony died in the U.S. maybe 10 years ago.

I also remember Leon "Lenny" Hontiveros, chairman of JWT Group in the Philippines and my boss at Lexington (PR). A gentleman of the old school, Lenny spoke softly and with great authority. He had run his own advertising agency that had serviced Pepsi for many years when JWT invited him in the late 1960s. He was a kind man, and had one of the sharpest minds I had seen in his business. When he trusted his people, he left them virtually alone. After Client meetings, he would treat me to his favorite, noodles, wherever we were, Makati or Quezon City.

Another Tony was de Joya, the Tony de Joya. An original, sui generis. Like Lenny, Tony made his mark in advertising (Lenny and Tony worked together early in their careers, in an ad agency), but fancied himself a PR person as well. Many of AMA's (the agency he founded and owned) campaigns for Nestle were PR-orientated, as well as its work for JETRO (Japanese External Trade Organization). Tony always had the big picture in mind, what a campaign or project can do for Client, and also for the country. Nobody talked like Tony--he was precise, forceful, charming and rather hard to stop. In PR, Tony was one of those who organized the Asean Confederation of PR organizations. The likes of Tony de Joya do not occur frequently.

Still another Tony, Tony Mercado, who was my friend. These three Tonys were all Ateneans, and it showed in the way they wrote and spoke, with care and gentleness, and vigor. Tony Mercado was chairman of Basic Advertising, one of the most successful agencies here in the 1980s and 1990s. Tony Mercado kept on saying, Yes my work is advertising and marketing, but my heart is PR. He had his pulse on campaigns whose impact would be last long , and benefit not a market alone, but the larger society. Like the CMMA and the revival of Radio Veritas, and his agency's Values campaigns for DBP, PLDT and Pop Cola. Tony worked for the Church as well and created programs that would ensure that his people in the agency were always to be on the top of their game.

Elsewhere I have written of Jose Carpio, Pete Teodoro and RR de la Cruz. I was fortunate to have known them, these three, and the five I have just briefly recalled here. They all did landmark work in PR. I think they were all friends or at least knew each other.

How did it look like, the first time they met (in heaven, come on!, in heaven). What did they discuss? And who presided at their meeting? I have, as a matter of fact, an idea.

Mang Iking

I am referring to Mr. Enrique B. Santos,  whom I, and other PR practitioners of my age, would   respectfully call Mang Iking. He is 80 years-old now, and  has been ailing for sometime. Mang Iking  was tops as a PR practitioner when he was active in the 1970s and 1980s. He was vice president for public relations of the Philippine Airlines for many years. Among his chores was conducting briefings for the media when some PAL aircraft was involved in  an accident. Owing to his experience in the airline industry, Mang Iking wrote no less than three books, between 1969 to 1981,  on the history and development of commercial aviation and the airline industry in the Philippines.

Mang Iking, who wore a crewcut,  was an affable man,  given to sharing wisdom with younger colleagues. O, this is the way it is, he would say, in his low authoritative voice. 

In 1972, his friend Manny D. Benipayo of MDB Publishing, published his book, PR: Living on Bull's-Eye" probably  the first PR book published in the country. The book is out of print now. 

In it, Mang Iking says: "Few managements realize that it is always what it does, never what it says about itself, that gives a corporation a good reputation."  

And also: "PR is not a loom on which cloth can be woven out of thin air. It is not a magic wand by which to coax public approbation out of a hat. It can work only with what is factual." 

Mang Iking had been a newsman before he turned to PR. He was  desk editor in the Manila Chronicle, where he worked twice, the first time in the 50s, and then briefly in the early 70s, after he left PAL.  In the Chronicle he  was recognized as  chief language and style technician, and the "drillmaster who taught several batches of young reporters how to write good copy." (Raul Rodrigo, The Power and the Glory, The Story of the Manila Chronicle, 1945-1998).

"He was an awfully hard worker, spent all his time at work, especially when he was a journalist,'' Marina,  his wife of 58 years, says. "Though he was a taskmaster, his reporters liked him, for he was always fair."  Mang Iking and Aling Marina are alone now, for all their surviving children are in the U.S. 

Mang Iking was like R.R. de la Cruz, Pete Teodoro and Joe Carpio.  All  older than we,  they generously and unhesitatingly shared what they knew of PR, which was a lot,  with us. 

A Word from Mr. Bernays

Edward L. Bernays, who gave Public Relations its name, puts character and integrity as the chief qualities of what he calls the ideal public relations man. Although he conceded that such a creature does not exist in the flesh, he distilled from more than 70 years of PR experience a set of standards that the ideal PR man would have to live up to.

It is a tough course that Mr. Bernays laid out for the practitioner who would aspire to the ideal. First of all, "he should be a man of character and integrity, who has acquired a sense of logic without having lost the ability to think creatively and imaginatively.”

To Bernays, who counselled his way through decades that covered dismal periods of muckraking, charlatanism and irresponsibility in American business, integrity is so central that he says in effect that there can be no PR without integrity.

Bernays, acknowledged as the “father of professional PR counselling,” believed that PR practice is based largely on that crucial quality of character and integrity. Codes of ethics, for instance, may try to tell the PR man how he should conduct himself in the general practice of PR, but the final test, the litmus test, he himself will have to take.

“The professional must be his own arbiter,” Mr. Bernays wrote decades ago. “If he lacks character and integrity, he will fail to maintain the professional conduct on which he will be judged and on which the profession as a whole is judged.”

The beautiful part of the canon of Mr. Bernays is that what he says is true, even in real life. In PR one can endure if he has character. One may survive from year to year , and even get rich and famous, without   integrity, but he will miss the fun--of knowing that doing it right, really does work.

Character in PR could refer to any number of imperatives, but one safe test would be measuring oneself against our old-fashioned concepts of right and wrong. And when one still has to learn right and wrong when he enters PR work, that could be a problem indeed.

PR Education and Training at IPRA Beijing PR World Congress

We are glad that one of the moderators in the  PR World Congress, to be sponsored by the International Public Relations Association (IPRA), Beijing, Nov. 13-15 is Frank Ovaitt, President of the University of Florida-based Institute of Public Relations (IPR, http//:www.instituteforpr.org/digest/) Frank will moderate the session on PR Education and Training, Nov. 14.  The IPR is an "independent non-profit that bridges the academy and the profession, supporting PR research and mainstreaming this knowledge into practice through PR education."

I have always liked IPR's tagline: the "science beneath the art of public relations." Particularly to be commended is the IPR's long-time advocacy for stronger measurement and evaluation systems in PR practice, which after all this time,  still has a long way to go as part and parcel of PR service. 

Frank  is managing director of Crossover International, Inc., which provides communications management services to MNCs and entrepreneurial companies and was vice president  of  both ATT and MCI for many years.  He  is eminently suited to head IPR, as he is also a PR educator who  speaks in seminars in the U.S. and other countries. I  would run  into Frank in PR conventions and I am sure those who will attend his session in Beijing  will benefit from his pithy and practical take on current PR issues.

THOUGHTFUL RESPONSIBLE PR FROM PHILAMLIFE

It is thoughtful and smart of Philamlife to be doing what it has been doing over the past few days, since AIG in the U.S. announced that it is going to sell  it off. The other day,  Jose L.  Cuisia, Jr., President and CEO,  conducted a press conference to reiterate a previous message: that the company's policyholders need not worry for it is  very strong financially, and that it  can fulfill its obligations. Before that the company had published full-page "reassuring" ads in major newspapers, and still does. "The financial issues pertaining to our parent company, AIG, do not affect our ability to pay claims and underwrite new policies," the ad says. 

Mr. Cuisia answered media queries cooly and authoritatively. The company's message has been fairly clear and strong: that  as a leader in life insurance  for many years, it is strong and stable and will abide by all  its commitments and obligations. The fact that it is now up for sale will not change that.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer has a report today ("Worried mom visits Philamlife to get money, comes out reassured") on how Philamlife has assigned employees to meet and talk to worried customers who come to withdraw their deposits (from PhilamSavings Bank).

It is thoughtful, smart and responsible of Philamlife to be doing all  these. A company that is going through  uncertain times has a responsibility to give its stake holders the true picture, promptly. It needs to keep reassuring them that management is on the job and is  looking after interest as their prime concern. It has to come out publicly with statements that are clear, simple and credible. 

All these Philamlife is doing. It is acting responsibly, which is just as good PR as anyone can do. 

PR and the Current Crisis

Let us try  to draw lessons from the financial crisis that now  grips the U.S. and agitates the rest of the world. We in the Philippines are constantly reassured, by government and those in the know, that we should not be in serious trouble soon, unless the recession in the U.S. drags on for a long time,  and if  we keep our fundamentals strong and stay watchful.

The state we are in now reminds us of some of the basic rules that we follow in PR.

1. Know what is going on. Much of what has been going on in the U.S. since September and even before that is complex and may not seem to be relevant to our businesses and lives in the Philippines. Let us try to understand how the problem started, anyway, the sequence of events that exacerbated  it and how the situation continues to unravel.  God forbid, but things have a way of catching up with those who do not care.

2. Stay disciplined, stay focused.  Keep producing, saving and  pegging our costs on reasonable levels.  Hold on to our Clients by providing value services, and helping them maximize their advantages. Dramatize to them, with new practical offerings, how PR can help them gain the upper hand in a difficult, anxiety-ridden market. The time to be ready is when the problem  has not yet come.

3. Be even more nimble, and more creative. Time was when PR was the first thing that got lopped off. The good news is that it no longer is;  bad news is that it still is, as always, vulnerable. Be ready to get axed,  or your budgets reduced,  by keeping your secondary services readily available.  PR is not alone execution, but ideas that help  improve, build, enhance, create and re-create products, businesses and institutions. 

4. Be accountable. Clients are even more miserly  now  to those who cannot account satisfactorily for what they are paid for. Give them facts of your accomplishments that they cannot resist: numbers that they cannot dispute because they represent what you have measured and proven. We call this measurement and evaluation, but all it really means is that we have to keep showing our worth, and when we cease doing that, we may keep our good name, but not their business.

5. Oh, communicate. I like the U.P. economists who try to communicate on TV their understanding of the current crisis, how it evolved, and how it does, or could, affect us. When people are anxious and unsure of themselves they are reassured by  facts and insights delivered responsibly, clearly and on-time, like right now. We in PR must be part of this process. We must be engaged, we must be part of the solution. 

We have been through the likes of this before, but this one may be fuller of mischief, so let us, without being killjoy, brace up.