PUBLIC relations (PR) was born and developed in the United States. Having been a Commonwealth country of the US, and with the US influence lingering long after we gained our independence in 1946, it was no surprise that the Philippines was among the first countries outside the US where the PR profession took hold.
However, perhaps because its professional practitioners worked mainly behind the scenes and sought public attention to the organizations or individuals they worked for rather than to themselves—which is really as it should be—a great deal of misconceptions proliferated about what PR was all about. Many such misconceptions linger to this day, which had—ironically, for a profession that took pride in building a good image for others—the effect of PR itself suffering from a negative image.
Such a negative image has prevented PR from gaining the recognition and respect that it deserved. It also attracted to get into the field unqualified young people and out-and-out charlatans with criminal minds who thought that PR involved primarily the use of “dirty tricks,” black propaganda, disinformation, bribery and corruption, further giving PR a bad name which the early and even later legitimate PR practitioners had to work hard to overcome.
Surely, what the PR profession needed to undertake was an intensive “PR for PR” campaign to improve its somewhat tainted image.
Perceptions as model for professionalism
IT was for this reason that we tried our best ever since I founded Perceptions in the late 1980s to make it a model or prototype of what I felt a professional PR agency should be, patterned after the agencies I worked for or with during my career in the Philippines, in New York, Hong Kong and the Asean countries. Over the years since the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) deemed me worthy of the appellation Accredited in PR, I have also worked actively with its APR Committee in helping assess the qualification of other PR practitioners who deserved to carry the same APR appellation after their names, which would attest to their high level of competence and integrity as PR professionals.
With the PRSP, the International PR Association (Ipra) and the Association of PR Counselors, we have also helped organize—and participate in—the many seminars they have held for students and young, up-and-coming PR staff or junior executives over the years. I have no doubt a good number of those who took the seminars hold responsible positions in the PR industry today.
How to make it in PR book
ANOTHER major milestone in our PR for PR advocacy, which the Ipra Philippine chapter included among its major programs, was when Ipra member and past Ipra Chairman Romy Virtusio spearheaded the publication in 2007 of an unprecedented book entitled How to Make it in PR. The book contained the memoirs of the PR careers of several of the so-called PR veterans of the Philippines.
It was the first time such a book was published in the Philippines, or elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region for that matter, where it has gained wide readership. I believe Romy deserves a lot of credit for coming out with this book, which has given young PR people several models for PR careers to look up to and to follow. It was, more than anything else, a labor of love and a lasting legacy that Romy did for our PR for PR campaign and for the profession in which he excelled in general.
PR Matters column
ANOTHER PR for PR opportunity presented itself to us two years ago when our Ipra Philippine chapter president, Millie Dizon, was able to negotiate with the BusinessMirror to give us space every Monday in its prestigious Marketing Section for a column devoted specifically to public relations.
Entitled “PR Matters” to convey the idea of how important a role PR plays in the life of our nation, the columns consist of articles written by Ipra members holding very senior positions in several of the country’s leading business organizations and agencies. The knowledge and insights they have been selflessly sharing with the readers of the BusinessMirror should be very valuable indeed.
With nearly 100 incisive, relevant and timely articles on PR in the Philippines and around the world having come out so far, the PR Matters column has been a considerable step forward in promoting our PR for PR advocacy. Not just businessmen, PR practitioners but the general public have found it a useful resource for how real professional PR should be practiced and the latest trends in PR around the world that they may find applicable in their own areas.
Students visit a major PR for PR activity
ONE of our PR for PR advocacy programs in which we take great satisfaction has been receiving students from various schools in the country on “field trips” to show them how PR is actually practiced in the real world to augment the principles and theories they are taught in school. One school which has developed such a good and regular program of field trips is Silliman University, one of the leading academic institutions in the South and in the whole country for that matter.
It so happens that their Assistant Prof. Irma Faith Bermas Pal, who has been accompanying them in their field trips to Manila, was a former PR executive at Perceptions, one of our best ever. She left Perceptions to get married and raise a family in the South, specifically in Dumaguete in Negros Oriental where her husband was from and was working as a journalist.
However, not just content with being a housewife and mother, Irma decided to apply to teach at Silliman’s College of Mass Communications, for she felt she had the necessary qualifications and background to do so. She not only had professional PR experience in Manila but also held a Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications major in Journalism from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, as well as a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies from Brown University in Rhode Island in the US.
Metro Manila—where the action is
IRMA was able to teach her students the history and basic principles of communications, as well as the theories and techniques of communications fields like PR, advertising and media. But as to how these knowledge and theories were being applied in actual practice, she needed to bring her students to “where the action was”—that is, in Metro Manila.
“We started these Manila ‘exposure trips’ for PR students in February 2002 after we realized that our students, who were mostly from the Visayas and Mindanao, should also be exposed beyond the four walls of their classroom in Silliman in Dumaguete. And there was nothing like learning about the craft from the experts in the field in the big city of Metro Manila,” Pal acknowledged.
Having worked at Perceptions, we were Pal’s first choice for the PR agency for them to visit. Needless to say, we gladly obliged, being flattered and honored to be so chosen. Other top communications and media organizations they have visited during their Manila itinerary were the Philippine Daily Inquirer, ABS-CBN, GMA Network, Ogilvy, Coca-Cola, Nickel Asia and even the Presidential Communications Operations Office in Malacañang where Secretary Herminio B. Coloma Jr. himself took time off to meet with them.
“So basically, I would take my students to my former mentors and recognized experts in their fields who I personally believed in and looked up to. You will be impressed by how such supposedly ‘big people’ at the top of their professions have been willing to share their precious time with students flying into Manila from outside Luzon.”
How have her students reacted to their Manila office visits? One student, echoing the sentiments of majority of his Silliman classmates, said: “The visits gave me a glimpse of what it would take a Mindanao boy to tackle head-on the Manila lifestyle. I have never been so empowered about readying myself for work in the real world. I loved the companies we visited for the kind of work they do, and the passion they put into it.”
For me and my fellow PR for PR advocates, these are statements and sentiments that make us feel our efforts are well worth it. And that the bright future of PR in the Philippines is assured. But much more work lies ahead. Our PR for PR advocacy to make our profession better understood and appreciated must be a continuing one, so long as there are people who think PR is mere “gimmickry” or “playing games.”
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the Ipra, the premier association for senior professionals around the world. Rene Nieva is the chairman and CEO of Perceptions Inc.
We are devoting a special column each month to answer the readers’ questions about public relations. Send your comments and questions to askipraphil@gmail.com. a