Ad Congress Cancels Baguio Junket, Moves to Subic

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When I learned that Ad Congress 2009 was to be held in Baguio City I was just too happy to prepare for it.  As an active supplier of hospitality services — lodging, food and entertainment in the last two Ad Congresses held in Baguio City I know how much the city earns when the wild members of the event decide to celebrate their work. And I have to say that on those occasions, I was so proud of how Baguio City pulled out all the stops to accommodate partying members of the advertising industry of the Philippines.

For this Ad Congress, I tried  to accommodate all requests for information for their primers, from folks asking to reprint the information I have in my Baguio Travel website or for new articles for their publications. This is on top of planned bonfire parties and venue arrangements for a host of friends and customers who wanted a location close to Camp John Hay and Baguio Country Club.

All hotels and other accommodations, restaurants and shops would spend extra to prepare, all the cops and city officials would be on the alert, sponsors would come from everywhere creating interesting events for the delegates and residents to enjoy.

In the last Ad Congress, sponsors even had a street party on Legarda Road just for the residents where cellphones were being raffled away, and I can say that Baguio folks were not left behind in the festivities and it was a totally Panagbenga-like atmosphere for everyone.

The presence of 5,000 guests (delegates plus companions, family, sponsors, staff) gives Baguio City residents a lot of income, directly or indirectly and would have been a welcome boost to the city’s flagging tourism economy.

I never thought I would ever use those last three words online, but it’s true. Flagging because of all the uglification and corruption going on, among other things. Which is sad considering we used to be the Philippine’s No. 1 tourist destination just a few decades ago, and sad because we have chosen to rebuild this beautiful city in the clouds, the place in the Philippines that was all about bucolic chic, by turning it into the diploma capital of Northern Luzon, with all the pollution, traffic and crime that goes with not having any love for this one-of-a-kind place on earth.

Tourism Means Jobs, A Lot of Income for All

And when the Ad Congress was ongoing, you can imagine how much everyone here was earning! The visitors would buy food, even furniture, and just about everything that Baguio City had for sale. Business would have to hire extra staff to accommodate the volume of customers that this particular convention would bring.

My restaurant on Nevada Square was open from 11:00am to 6:00am everyday for days and we had to triple on stocks and personnel.

I guess that’s what Dick Gordon means when he says tourism means jobs. Imagine if we had that volume of guests every weekend? Goodbye unemployment in Baguio City! Tourists spend in a weekend what students would spend in 30 days and consume less water and resources and then leave the residents to enjoy peace and quiet for 4 days until the next batch of tourists. Now we have to live with tens of thousands of students DAILY year-round.

While I am saddened by this news — oh you cannot believe how depressed I am now — I cannot say I blame the organizers for their fears, for no matter what assurances we give them, they really just care about celebrating their achievements for the past few years.

They have come to this decision, I suppose, because:

• The 21st century has seen flooding and landslides in the city. It does not matter “why” or “where” or “whose fault.” What matters is the WHAT.

• Baguio City cannot control its access ways. Yes we cleared Kennon, Marcos and Naguilian in record time, and we did not suffer any shortages for too long. And as far as I know, no one was harmed in any landslides there, but there was flooding in the lowlands, there is an important bridge that was damaged, causing all visitors to add another 14km to the trip (big deal!). Heck, we cannot even do anything about MacArthur Highway but complain about the experience of passing through the Urdaneta City traffic when travel is regular and pray that SCTEX extends to La Union in record time.

• They were not here the day the typhoon moved away, they did not see the birds and the butterflies and the bright blue skies, the organizers only saw the news for days and days, with ABS CBN  News and GMA News using old footage of rains and landslides as if that was what was going on here for a whole week, and without indicating anywhere that they were using five-day old videos. The organizers were probably too busy planning the move to Subic during Typhoon Pepeng to care about anything else.

Ano Sa Tingin Mo?

But, there’s always a but — if the Ad Congress did push through in Baguio because all the areas where they were planning their gigs went unscathed by Typhoon Pepeng, just their presence would have at least sent everyone a positive message “See, everything is alright up here, or Baguio bounces back pretty fast.”

The city “won the bid fair and square,” Anthony de Leon of the Baguio Tourism Council, said. “The roads are all open, the venues are not affected, this is not the fault of Baguio.”

Or if the organizers decided to postpone their event for January, they would, in my eyes at least, have been considered sensitive  to the plight of the typhoon victims  in general.

Martin Masadao, in his blog, talks about the convention of physicians being cancelled altogether and their efforts concentrated on relief work while Ad Congress goes to Subic. He makes some very good points there.

Instead they are now sending world this message: “The show must go on — elsewhere — even if we have thousands and thousands of countrymen in Manila or Central Luzon still suffering from those killer typhoons.”

Even if they say…

“The 21st PAC must push through in the face of calamity. The sufferings of its victims are not lost on the advertising industry, and if there is one thing we learned from our shared tragedy, it is solidarity.”

… there’s no way Ad Congress will not be a kick-ass 4-day PARTY with 5,000 guests.

Oh yeah, they will donate a portion of the proceeds to the calamity victims… whoopee…

In the video they ask, “Ano sa tingin mo?”

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