DOT may drop new slogan; PNoy to meet tourism chief

Amid persistent criticisms over his agency's "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" tag, Tourism Secretary Alberto Lim on Friday hinted he may totally pull the plug on the slogan. Lim also said President Benigno Aquino III, who had ordered a study on the matter, has summoned him to a meeting over the controversy the tourism tag has drawn. "Meron kaming meeting mamaya (We will have a meeting today)… We are going to talk about it," he said in an interview on dwIZ radio. He did not say where and what time the meeting would be held. On Thursday, Aquino said the controversial "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" slogan is being studied in the wake of scathing criticisms against it. But Lim said the criticisms may already be taking their toll this early. "Sa dami ng batikos baka di na matuloy (With all these criticisms, we may drop this line)," he said. He also took a dig at critics, who he said are claiming to be more knowledgeable than the "researchers" who coined the slogan. "Kung talagang ayaw ng tao, mas marunong pa sila sa research, e di baka umatras na lang kami (If people reject it because they think they know more than the researchers do, we will back off)," he said, adding that the slogan was a product of “research." Lim said they had planned to make "ganda (beautiful)" a household word just like "Sayonara" (Japan) and "Aloha" (Hawaii).

But if the new slogan is dropped, he said they are ready to use again the "WOW Philippines" tag. "Ang problema ang slogan natin dati na yan at naiwanan tayo ng iba kasi di nagamit, di bago, it's nothing new. Sila nag-spend sa kanilang brand, tayo hindi," he said. (We can return to ‘WOW Philippines.’ But the slogan is outdated because it was not used for some time. Other countries spend much for their branding, we don’t.) Porn link Lim admitted his group failed to do research on the choice of tourism’s Internet addresses. Critics had claimed the Tourism Department’s supposed new website www.beautifulpilipinas.com may lead to a porn site www.beautifulfilipinas.com. The second link would redirect users to the porn site www.fantasylatina.com. "Nagkamali kami sa choice ng address ... Di namin naisip may porn site (We made a wrong choice of Internet addresses. We never thought it was close to a porn site)," Lim said. Also, He disputed claims that DOT’s "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" typeface and logo was lifted from a tourism logo of Poland. "Kung plagiarism ang daming nagpa-plagiarize, you use the same typefaces all the time (If we plagiarized it we would have copied it en toto)," he said. But he said they took a page from Poland and Spain’s tourism branding using their native tongue "Polska" and "España," in using "Pilipinas" in their tourism slogan. — LBG/RSJ, GMANews.TV