Message to Noynoy. Know if he´s communicating?

MANILA - "If you´re not careful, you might learn something," comedian Bill Cosby says. In no comedic terms, in Isabela, with a master title to some land, I have just spent more than 1 week figuring out how to deal with human-rights thinking tenants becoming, as they claim, landowners through Emancipation Patents, the idea of the late President Cory Aquino, the mother of the new President Noynoy Aquino. In Isabela, I have also been thinking about knowledge management, as I know that knowledge, in the form of information, is the greatest capital in modern times, the idea of Peter Drucker, management guru. Information is now a capitalist tool, and I love it! Emancipation Patents are another matter altogether.

Communications presumes knowledge. It pleases me no end to learn that the new leader of the islands called The Philippines, Noynoy Aquino knows communications and can discriminate between "messaging" and "dissemination" - that´s what I pick up from the report of TJ Burgonio (11 July 2010, inquirer.net).

I´m a continuing teacher, inveterate writer, indefatigable blogger, unorthodox thinker. Now you know why anything about communications interests me greatly. From TJ, specifically we learn that Noynoy "finally organized his own Communications Group to act as Press Secretary and articulate his policies after a frenetic 10 days in power."

22 words in quotes, and they contain very interesting info as far as I´m concerned. That has led The Rebel Writer in me to thinking these rebel thoughts:

One, if I were Noynoy I would have formed my Com Group right after I learned that I was President-Elect, weeks before I assumed power. This group would then have buckled down to hammer out communications policies before making any proclamations or pronouncements.

Two, from policymaking, the Com Group would have proceeded to laying out the communication procedures from input to output.

Three, if they were worth their weight in gold, working as one mind, the members of that Com Group would have been the clearinghouse of messages and would have prevented so much indiscreet and indiscriminate accounts or announcements.

Can the Com Group act as Press Secretary? I don´t think so. Too many cooks spoil the broth. There must be just one warm body to become or act as Press Secretary - have too many warm bodies in one room and it will overheat.

In any case, can a Press Secretary in any manner, shape or form articulate the President´s policies? Oh yes, assuming that the President himself has been inarticulate about them. (I´m sure it´s a he - it can be a she, but I can imagine there´s too much hassle it can be a killing job, judging from what happened to Cerge Remonde; you might want to read my essays "Cerge Remonde. Understanding without media," 21 January 2010, and "Stilled life. The miseducation of the Filipino," 23 January 2010, both published in the American Chronicle).

Ah, "frenetic 10 days in power" - hours upon hours, I imagine, that harassed everyone. Unnecessary stress. Those should have been instead unhurried 10 days in power management meetings, in power visioning, in power missioning, in getting a bird´s-eye view of the status and statistics of these 7,107 islands in the Pacific. And then the next unhurried 10 days spent in power planning, strategizing, goal-making, objective-setting, and finally, task-assigning.

TJ Burgonio also reports that Noynoy had confirmed the designation of his 3 magi (my term), with Ricky Carandang and Manolo Quezon in charge of "messaging" and Sonny Coloma in charge of "dissemination" of the Com Group (Burgonio as cited). A fine distinction. From tweeter Jove Francisco, I get this message: "A proposal that floated was to give RTVM, PBS and NBN4 to the messaging group. The PIA, IBC13, RPN9 etc to the dissemination group. Aksyon TV5." Whatever. For any such arrangement to work well, first, they will have to agree on the essence of what is "messaging" and what is "dissemination" - not an easy task. Among other things, I imagine heated theory and practice debates between the Messaging and Dissemination teams on Marshall McLuhan´s ideas such as "the medium is the message" and "the medium is the massage." How about this: At the University of the Philippines Los Baños, in communications, they don´t distinguish between messaging and dissemination? At UP Diliman, are they any better, meaning, do they discriminate?

Surprise! I am very pleased indeed to find out that since 2005, Sonny Coloma has "opted to become what author Marsha Sinetar calls an ´artist of encouragement´" (Sonny Coloma, 15 July, bworldonline.com). That would be something like my idea of the Flip, the Filipino who loves & inspires positively (see my dedicated blog, Flipinos, blogspot.com). There´s hope in the Filipino.

Given what I know and don´t, my prediction is that Sonny Coloma will become Noynoy´s Communications Director. Sonny is a columnist of BusinessWorld. He is also a Professor at the Asian Institute of Management and was head of the Presidential Management Staff under Cory Aquino.

TJ says Ricky is a broadcast journalist, TV host and anchor of the ABS-CBN News Channel, ANC. He is also the President of the magazine Newsbreak (Burgonio as cited).

TJ says Manolo is a regular columnist of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, a historian. He is a TV host of his own show "The Explainer." He was a speech writer of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when she was yet a Senator and also when a Vice President. He was the spokesperson for the inaugural of Noynoy.

I understand Noynoy´s Com Group is a restructured Office of the Press Secretary, with 2 groups: Messaging and Dissemination (Jill Beltran, 13 July, sunstar.com). Presidential Spokesman Edwin Lacierda says the group is "tasked to deliver news 24/7." The Com Group "will use both traditional and new media in reaching out to Filipinos of all ages" (Willard Cheng, 15 July, abs-cbnnews.com). Noynoy says:

We are making a 21st century version of Magsaysay. If before you had an issue, you sent a telegram, but nobody uses a telegram nowadays. If we use short messaging system or text, how many billions of text do we need? If somebody sends us a text, how do we respond?

Noynoy says his Com Group "will also tap social networks, since 18-22% of Filipinos are now members of at least one social network." I´m not fond of networking, but then it might just be fun.

Noynoy wants his Com Group´s work to be like Ramon Magsaysay´s communications effort that was essentially an ad hoc citizen-government receive-react endeavor (my term). I understand Noynoy wants his version institutionalized and the whole system updated to the 21st century (Delon Porcalla, 17 July, philstar.com). Magsaysay received telegrams and responded by letters. This time, Aquino will respond by messages via cell phone, Twitter and Facebook. The aim is toward "reaching more citizens and maximizing the promotion of government programs."

And there will be really no Press Secretary. "The gist is," says Aquino, "when it´s only the Press Secretary, we believe that it´s leading the press, period. But what I want is for communication to be interactive (with the people)." He explains (Porcalla as cited):

The penetration of social networking (websites) is about 18-22 percent of Pinoys. I´m looking for the combination of all of that, so governance will be more effective. So we have the press, interaction, production, messaging, we´ll use all of these.

Noynoy has appointed Ricky Carandang and Sonny Coloma "to head the Communications Group in a co-equal capacity" (Porcalla as cited). Ah, that tells me 2 things: Within the Com Group, you will have 2 divisions, Messaging and Dissemination; if the Communications Director, their head, sides with either division and does not recognize that the two must work as 1 team in 1 Communications Group process, there will be trouble. This is how I differentiate the 2 sub-processes:

Messaging gathers data and info, assembles the materials into a package, and submits to Dissemination, which then crafts the final release. Messaging has the substance, Dissemination has the style. Messaging has the internal content, Dissemination has the external language. Messaging has the first word, Dissemination has the final word on the subject.

If the two divisions of the Com Group don´t accept some such similar separation of powers, there will be hell to pay.

And that is why the Com Group is important, very important. The Press Secretary (or Presidential Spokesman) must be backed up by an intelligent, insightful, instant-information-reactive, all-for-one-one-for-all Com Group. In other words, the Com Group must be communications savvy, not simply Twitter-savvy and Facebook-savvy.

I also anticipate wringing of more hands when it comes to communicating science & technology, techniques & tools, processes & systems, software & hardware. How do you reduce technical language to layman´s terms? This is going to be a mammoth problem because at the moment, no science handbook and no science website anywhere in the Internet is layman-friendly, only expert-friendly. That is because the Masters of Information are not layman-friendly either.

As things stand, I can see that Noynoy Aquino´s Com Group, no matter how brilliant the members are, no matter how profound the policies, no matter how polished the procedures, no matter how incorruptible the intentions, they will be overwhelmed with all those tens of thousands of messages being uploaded and downloaded. If the Communications Group becomes the Information Overlord, there will be Information Overload.

Knowledge is power, but first you have to harness it. I submit that what Noynoy needs to create, along with his Communications Group, is a Knowledge Group that will react as well as proact. It will proactively gather, manage and share scientific knowledge - and folk wisdom. I´m talking about a people´s knowledge bank that dispenses answers to questions, but most of all, presents options to people so that they can learn to be self-reliant, not expert-reliant, not government-reliant either. And while folk wisdom needs no translation, all scientific language must be translated into non-scientific talk, all the technical jargon transformed into plain English first: later, the knowledge bank can be translated into Tagalog, Ilocano, Cebuano and other major languages in the Philippines.

I understand that the new Malacañang occupant has had Internet problems, to say the least. For instance, 3 days after Noynoy Aquino became President, the Office of the President website (op.gov.ph) was still proclaiming Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo as Philippine President, and no one knew the password to log in and upload new or updated material (Ellen Tordesillas, 05 July, gmanews.tv). Another problem was that people were stymied in answering their own question, "Who has the mandate to order the setting up of a new website for OP?"

OMG, in an emergency situation, you have to think fast, and still be brilliant. You are working for the President, and you don´t need any mandate - in fact, you don´t even need an OP website. Isn´t Noynoy Aquino for the masses? All you need is a website with a mass appeal for the new President. I´m 69, not a computer programmer, but I know enough tricks and techniques I could have set up something for you, with smashing design, everything free, a new website in 15 minutes - and enjoy my 15 minutes of fame! And I could have added powerful content in the next 2 hours; I could have done everything first in English, with which I am facile, then Ilocano, which is my native tongue, then Tagalog, in that order. A one-man job if necessary.

With modern information and communication technologies, solutions could be as fast - assuming that the solver knows.

Here´s a test case for Noynoy Aquino´s Communications Group, and this is not theoretical; this is a real-world complaint, and it comes from me; how would they deal with this?

I am Frank A. Hilario, holder of the original master title #T-73909 issued by the Register of Deeds of the Province of Isabela in 1974; I am Attorney in Fact of the 4 owners that include me, and we want to sell all 8 hectares irrigated riceland as one contiguous property. The consummation of the sale is prevented by the fact that there are 4 tenants, each holding a Certificate of Land Transfer dated 1994 referring to lots covered by the 1974 master title, the CLTs issued under orders of Cory Aquino, President of the Republic, each CLT holder claiming ownership of specific plots. The master title says the 8 hectares belong to 4 persons, the maximum ownership being 4 hectares, belonging to my father. I know that to not fall under Operation Land Transfer, the maximum allowable limit for individual land ownership is 5 hectares. The sins of the mother visiting on the son? Please reply to frankahilario@gmail.com

The CLT is a step toward the Emancipation Patent. Will the original landowners be liberated from latter-day claimants, or will the tenants be emancipated from their landlords, one of them me? To resolve the issue in favor of either the master title or the CLTs, the Com Group has to know more than what appears on the surface of those conflicting titles.

The Hilario Test Case indicates that really, the new Malacañang´s modern media problems are enough proof that the marching order of the day should be:

Messaging first before dissemination, but knowing & understanding first before messaging.

Ignorance excuses no one. With what you don´t know, or don´t understand yourself, you can´t inform the world in its own terms. For now we see, as in a glass, darkly. To change metaphor: Communications built on knowledge gained solely reactively and not equally proactively is like a house of knowledge built on shifting sands of ignorance, and you know the rest of the story: "The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell - and great was its fall!" (Matthew 7: 24-27 New Revised Standard Version).