Welcome to the PR Presidency

By Joey Salgado

As he enters the third year of his six-year term, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is turning to public relations to resuscitate his approval ratings. By his own admission, he is looking for quick fixes. He wants high-visibility activities calculated to bring back the romance and magic of 2022 when 31 million Filipinos voted him to office.

The President wants people to believe in him again so badly. It’s a plea straight from that OPM classic by singer Ric Segreto: you’ve got to give me a chance.

With disapproval a staggering 53 per cent in March, that’s a big ask.

This hasn’t deterred the President and his handlers from projecting the image of a chief executive tirelessly working for the people but still managing to press flesh and show off that trademark Marcos smile, often with the First Family in tow, the First Lady all charm and the kids trying not to look bored. It’s a template from the reign of Marcos I. And it’s what mom has always counseled. Wasn’t it the former first lady who said “Perception is real. Truth is not”? For the President, mother knows best.

Poll-driven

The PR approach to the presidency demands professional hands deftly juggling PR moves, keen political instincts, and quick reaction time.To measure success, the President’s team will rely mainly on surveys. This will serve as their quarterly report card, monthly or weekly if they engage an in-house pollster. This is not new. Since the 1990s, when polling firms Social Weather Stations and Pulse Asia began measuring public opinion and releasing the results to media, every president has resorted to PR tools to manage perception and sway the public in his or her favor.

But by prompting likability and seeding positive feedback, there is the temptation to rely heavily on tried-and-tested PR formulas to generate endearment while avoiding difficult issues that could trigger negative feedback. This is problematic from a governance perspective. Equating effective leadership with high survey numbers could encourage aversion to making necessary but unpopular decisions. A president is tempted to take the safe performative route or issue statements that have tested well in focus groups. The result is governance that is not principle-driven, but poll-driven.

But public opinion, as we all know, is fickle. Administrations can move to influence it but there are also other players and forces working to pull it in the opposite direction.

While the presidency has always had the power to dominate, manage, or shift the national conversation, there are also developments that are beyond the President’s control. The unfolding crisis in the Middle East will impact on the economy, not to mention the safety of overseas Filipino workers in the region whose revenues have sustained the economy for decades. The President and his team cannot stop the conflict. They can only manage the response.

The political uncertainty over the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte is certain to deepen post-election division. The uncertainty will also scare away foreign investors. Given the high stakes, mainly political survival and personal safety after 2028, the President is seen as one of the key players, but not the dominant player, in the emerging battle for public opinion.

The impulse to be liked

For national leaders, surveys should always be a guide for crafting policy and response, a means to solicit authentic feedback. They should not be a crutch, or a tool for vanity, power preservation, and leverage. A leader who obsesses over survey results is most likely driven by the impulse to be liked, not the commitment to do what’s right.

And leaving office with high approval numbers is no guarantee of a secure place in history.

Former president Rodrigo Duterte left office with an approval rating of 73 per cent, but he left behind a deeply-divided nation, a trail of scandals involving billions in government funds, the highest self-rated poverty rate since 2003, and thousands dead from a drug war proven to be a failure. Being the most well-liked among former presidents does not guarantee a glowing legacy, nor does it provide a shield from accountability. For all the adulation showered on him, Duterte is now detained at the Hague, for crimes against humanity.

Still, we can expect to be flooded in the next three years with photos and reels and headline-grabbing statements designed to show the President as a take charge guy, the firm hand, the one who feels our pain and summons the resources of government to improve our lives. Expect him to act like the President we needed back in 2022, when the magic and romance was still there.

This article also appears in Rappler