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More Lessons
in Country Marketing
By Michael Alan Hamlin
September 22, 2003
After reading reports that the U.S.
Government is giving Thailand a US$10 million reward for capturing
Jemaah Islamiya (JI) terrorist Riduan Isamuddin, also known as Hambali,
a Bangkok-based friend called to ask me a question. "Does this
mean," he asked, "that the Philippines will have to give
back some of the $250 million in U.S. aid promised by U.S. President
George W. Bush to Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo because
it lost JI bomber Fathur Rohman Al-Ghozi?
After all, if countries get rewarded for allowing terrorists
to run free, there's not much incentive to spending the time and
effort necessary to track them down, right? So gain a terrorist
and get $10 million; lose one and lose the same amount, seems a
pretty reasonable proposition. One thing is certain, though: if
the Philippines were half as good at parlaying U.S. largesse into
goodwill as the Thai government is, public perception of the government's
relationship with the U.S. would be much healthier.
"'The U.S. government has already given us $10
million for help in the arrest of Hambali, and we will allocate
this fairly to the agencies concerned,'" Thai Prime Minister
Thaksin Shinawatra told reporters according to an Associated Press
report. "He said the money would be split among the National
Security Council, the Military Security Center, the Special Branch
Police and local police who helped in the arrest.
Thailand has turned the capture and reward into a public
relations coup. The $10 million, which comes with no strings attached,
has been played up heavily in the Bangkok media since the announcement
last week. Much of that attention has been focused on reports that
a substantial portion of the reward will be used to enhance the
benefits of a policemen's benevolent fund. Beneficiaries will be
children and spouses of policemen killed in the line of duty. Now,
that's friendship. It's also good marketing on the part of both
the U.S. Government and the Thaksin administration.
That warm-all-over feeling is notably absent in public
perception, at least as reported by media, in the Philippines. While
the Philippines has had difficulty holding onto the terrorists it
does capture, Ms. Arroyo has been, internationally at least, a vocal
supporter of the U.S.-sponsored War on Terrorism. Her administration
has been rewarded in other ways besides aid, including assistance
in fighting the Abu Sayyaf and a rare state dinner at the White
House when Ms. Arroyo called on Bush earlier this year.
Despite the love fest between the two administrations,
the U.S.-Philippine relationship remains a tortured one in many
respects. Much of the reason for this has to do with furthering
the interests of liberal-minded civil society groups, composed of
non-government organizations, academics, and leftist militants.
Long suppressed under disgraced former president Ferdinand Marcos,
these groups found their voice when freedom of speech was restored
in the aftermath of the 1986 People Power Revolution. Much of their
frustrated ire is naturally directed at the U.S. because of the
perception, mostly true I'm afraid, that successive U.S. administrations
propped Mr. Marcos up for years in order to keep a "friendly"
government in power.
Neither government since 1986 has done a very good job at communicating
the notion that those days are long gone. Instead, civil society
has consistently argued that the U.S. and successive Philippine
administrations have sought to reinstate that old relationship so
that these administrations could remain in power and the U.S. could
enjoy unfettered access to the former U.S. bases in Subic and Clark.
And somehow, that message has resonated.
There are many reasons for that resonance. What is important, though,
is that it has been 17 years since Marcos fled the country, and
over a decade since U.S. forces pulled out of the Philippines. And
during that time, neither the Philippines nor the United States
has credibly set and communicated a new agenda to drive their relationship
forward. I don't see a lot of malice in that failure in the way
the civil society groups do. Instead, I see essentially a failure
to communicate credibly, regularly, and meaningfully.
Now that the Philippines has entered an election year, and one fraught
with uncertainty, there's little chance that either the Arroyo or
Bush administrations can convince anyone that their mutual support
is anything but a relationship of convenience. Bush's visit on the
eve of Ms. Arroyo's "formal" decision, as reported in
media, to run for re-election has already reinforced that suspicion.
And while the visit may in fact boost Ms. Arroyo's ratings overall,
that probably doesn't mean that the U.S. is going to have an easier
time of things here. That will require a communication effort that
credibly demonstrates friendship, not just opportunity.
(Michael Alan Hamlin is the managing
director of consultancy TeamAsia and the author of three books on
Asian economies and companies. His latest book is Marketing Asian
Places, of which he is a co-author (Wiley, 2001), and he is currently
at work on High Visibility: The Making and Marketing of Asian Professionals
into Celebrities. Write him at mahamlin@teamasia.com.).
Copyright © 2003 Michael Alan
Hamlin. All Rights Reserved.
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