For almost a year now we have listened to a Department of Tourism (DOT) with a Secretary Wanda Tulfo Teo, that has no vision, no gameplan, no clear sense of what tourism is even supposed to be about, given the state of the nation.

You listen to Teo speaking with Pinky Webb on CNN Philippines and you realize she still knows absolutely nothing a year into her job. All she has as far as a tourism plan is concerned is an excitement about the investments that are coming in from China, and the interest in having international beauty pageants in the Philippines again and again.

Neither of those two things is what a sustainable, pro-people, environmental tourism plan makes. But what would someone with no credentials know?

The only two qualifications of Mrs. Teo to become DOT Secretary: (1) she owned a travel agency for Mt. Apo hikers which meant inevitably contributing to the degradation of this protected area, and (2) she’s a Tulfo.

In the same way that cultural positions were distributed among those who campaigned for Duterte, the Department of Tourism was a prize Mrs. Teo was given for absolutely no reason other than her connections.

As with many of those appointees: Mrs. Teo is not only clueless about her job and department, she is also, undoubtedly, wasting public funds.

Pageantry and nothing else
Mrs. Teo was oh so excited about the possibility of having Miss Universe here again, if not Miss World! Never mind that the DOT has yet to prove that the last Miss Universe was beneficial to nation.

And no, Mrs. Teo, you being told elsewhere in the world that they know the Philippines because of Miss Universe just doesn’t fly. Because while Miss Universe was happening here, there was barely any global media mileage or coverage – save for that time Miss Canada was body-shamed by our media.

You were also not only supposed to have a feasibility study on having that pageant, you were also supposed to have a post-event assessment, all transparent, so that the public knows how much of taxpayers’ money went into DOT sponsoring that pageant.

Because you don’t get away with saying we did not put out a single cent for the last Miss Universe. That is a lie. Every DOT press conference, every DOT coverage of the Miss Universe, every instance in which YOU and your DOT team were focused on Miss Universe instead of something else – that was our public funds paying YOU to do your jobs.

And I’m pretty sure your job is not to keep sponsoring Miss Universe (or any other pageant) in the country for the undefined, un-proven notion that it “promotes” the Philippines. If at all, it promotes Chavit Singson. And how much did he earn using national DOT resources exactly?

Yeah, you haven’t told us that either. And yet here you are already planning another international pageant in place of actually doing your job.

Excited about thoughtless investments
Mrs. Teo also believes in, is supportive of (and don’t forget excited about!) all the investments that are coming in from China that will happen in the form of casinos, condominiums, theme parks, hotels in our current tourist destinations. It seems she is clueless about the kind of tourism that is also happening in China, with a specific thrust on heritage conservation and natural and sustainable tourism development.

Sure there are problems as well, as with the degradation of the Great Wall of China, and the pollution in the city centers. Yet passing through the provinces of Suhzou and Dezhou before heading for Beijing in 2015, what struck me most about China were the decisions it obviously makes to consider rivers and forests, natural reserves and parks, as heritage sites that should be left untouched by development. In Suhzou, the new modern museum stood alongside old parks and reserves; in Dezhou the main highway stands parallel to rivers and streams and forests.

One wonders why we do not negotiate for these same projects that do not kill the environment, that work with existing resources, and in fact ensure their protection and survival for years to come.

That’s because Mrs. Teo doesn’t know any better. How will a person who knows nothing about the various possibilities for tourism who does not know about sustainability and environmental preservation, who has never spoken about heritage and cultural preservation, how can she know to negotiate with countries like China for tourism investments that are created specifically for our existing natural resources and reserves, our beaches and forests and heritage structures?

Killing the environment
In fact, Mrs. Teo is so clueless, so un-learned, that she still thinks it’s a good thing that Nickolodeon will continue its project of constructing something or other in Coron Palawan – even as we raised our fists against this last year.

I imagine any government official worth her salt would’ve already asked her team to do a feasibility study on developments like this one in places like Coron. Ah, but Mrs. Teo defies imagination. She says the corals will be protected, because the restaurant will not be in sea, it will be floating on its waters.

About which you wonder: does Mrs. Teo imagine that constructing a floating restaurant will not disrupt the corals at all? That construction and development will not ruin the ecology of Coron? She also says that this won’t just be a floating restaurant, but also a condominium and / or hotel on Coron land – something that excites her as well.

A question: does Mrs. Teo realize how terrible things are in Boracay at this point?

Of course not. Mrs. Teo is the most oblivious, ill-informed, incompetent government official there is. Right up there with Martin Andanar.

But while Mr. Andanar is just a waste of taxpayers’ money, Mrs. Teo’s ignorance will also be responsible for killing the environment, slaughtering our natural resources, and desecrating heritage sites. Her time in government will mean losses that are far larger, with repercussions that we will suffer for generations to come.

The President’s anti-mining stance is based on how it kills the environment. He should be looking at how the DOT is complicit in doing exactly that, too. ***

Published in The Manila Times, June 4 2017.