|
How to Make It in PR
PR Veterans Tell Their Stories
Edited by Romeo P. Virtusio
Published, copyrighted and
exclusively distributed by Content Communications International,
Inc.
Public relations practitioners
help reporters and editors—even if they don’t always want to
admit it. Lazy reporters (they never go far) depend on press
releases. They send these to their news desk with a little bit of
rewrite—if at all. Good reporters use press releases to lead them
to deeper stories. For, between the lines, press releases reveal
hidden things. They yield questions a good reporter wants answered:
Why is this company or that senator stressing this but playing that
down?
The 12 PR industry wizards
writing about their careers in How to Make It in PR don’t quite
disclose all their secrets. They handled—or are still
handling—some of the Philippines’ most important PR accounts.
Their work for clients made them players in important events. Some
of them actually helped create the conditions that caused those
events to happen.
Other great figures in Philippine
PR and advertising are mentioned in the book. Their work and
personalities are remembered with admiration by these 12 PR
veterans. They recall their links to the late Fenny Hechanova, who
became a key member of President Diosdado Macapagal’s Cabinet, and
the late Tony Mercado and his partner Miniong Ordoñez, whose PR and
advertising campaigns literally helped create sea-changes in the
outlook of Filipino audiences.
The PR professionals who are in
the book are those with whom Editor Virtusio has had extensive
professional dealings. That accounts for why there are no articles
by or about such other big names in PR as the late Bubby Dacer and
today’s active PR geniuses like Roly Estabillo, Tony Barranda, Ray
David, Resty Perez, Joan Orendain and others.
Unforgettable stories
Romy Virtusio heads his own PR
company. Apart from his outstanding professional work, Romy is
widely respected for his integrity, diligence and creativity. He has
written unforgettable short stories which Elmer Ordoñez, Bien
Lumbera and Ben Medina have praised. He is the older brother of
another writer of note, the late Wilfrido P. Virtusio.
I am proud of being Romy’s
friend. I have enjoyed and benefited from Romy’s friendship,
virtues and talents. We became friends and co-workers at J. Walter
Thomson very many years ago when I was the director of its PR
department.
The PR veterans wrote their
pieces for this book at a sacrifice, some being in poor health and
others—those still heavily loaded with work as professionals—had
to steal precious hours from their tight schedules and forgo golfing
weekends.
“It took us almost three years
to put this book together, although the idea was broached at least
five years ago. The memory of some of us is far from what it used to
be. If the reader will feel at least some affection for PR that the
writers have tried to convey here, that will be this book’s
ultimate reward. J J. Calero, prime eminence of Philippine
advertising, who was my boss at JWT, quite readily agreed to write
the Foreword, and with that confirmed our hunch that this book might
be a good idea,” Romy Virtusio says in the Acknowledgements.
Tribute to family values
This book makes a subliminal
tribute to family values. This must have sprung from Romy’s (and
his wife Lulu’s) exemplary family life. Each veteran’s personal
narrative is preceded by a small essay by a son or daughter. In the
case of Romy, his son Victor Arel and daughter Deesa collaborated on
their piece.
The veterans’ main articles
offer many concrete lessons in the craft of public relations. Each
also gives that lesson about “making it” being the fruit of the
exercise of several virtues.
Charlie A. Agatep’s The
Grandeur of PR; Jocelyn L. Buensalido’s Beyond ‘Lifestyle’
Glamour—A PR Woman’s Story; Max Edralin’s PR: A Work in
Progress; Rene Nieva’s Biyaheng PR: A Journey Worth Taking; Pedro
A. Padre’s A PR Man’s Journey From the Marketplace to the
Lord’s Vineyard; Virgilio Q. Pantaleon’s It’s Been A Rewarding
Career, It’s Been A Good Life; Frankie Roman’s Keep Pitching,
Keep Serving… ; Ambassador Oscar S. Villadolid’s PR Must Have
the Total Commitment of Management…; Romy Virtusio’s Give Me a
Story on Simple Elegance… are all worth at least two sessions in a
Communications-degree syllabus.
Originally published in the
Economic Monitor four-decades ago, two articles by Romy included in
this book emerged from his interviews with Philippine PR-practice
pioneers (“Pete Teodoro, Agency Man” and “Joe A. Carpio, Our
First Big PR Boss”). Those articles and Max Edralin’s The Legacy
of R.R. de la Cruz are treasures for Communications scholars and
historians of Philippine journalism.
Sparkles from Jayjay
I cannot think of a more fitting
way to end this review than to tease readers with some of the
sparkles in J.J. Calero’s Foreword:
“Recently I did an article on
Max Edralin, and ended the article with a piece of advice: ‘Please
set down in writing your experiences so that those who follow you
will be able to use your advice and will not have to ‘plot the
course’ the way you did yours.’
“Little did I know that Romeo
P. Virtusio, another public relations veteran, was equally concerned
and had decided to do something about it by orchestrating his peers
to write their experiences, precisely for the same reason…
“I never thought I would
see the day when these fiercely competitive individuals would come
together and share their experiences.
“It’s a great read. A great
wealth of experiences is contained in these pages. This book is a
must for anyone who is in the communications business…
“Each experience featured here
is different, yet the fundamentals that the veterans practiced are
the same.
“If only they could have
dropped their competitive walls and worked together, they would have
been able to avoid the mistakes that each one went through.
“If only they had picked up the
phone to warn each other about certain unscrupulous clients, instead
of trying to entice them to sign up with them, they would have been
able to avoid many a sad experience.
“But it is precisely these
experiences that have made them what they are—battled-scarred
veterans.
“And now, fortunately, they
have realized that they owe it to those who follow them to learn
from their experiences and even mistakes.
“I can see this book becoming a
must in every school library in the country and as standard reading
material for the communication industry….” 
--Rene Q. Bas
|
