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By Maricel V. Cruz, Reporter
ONE of the first things Speaker Prospero
Nograles did was create a a four-man “image management team” to
implement various image-building projects for the House of
Representatives which has consistently got poor ratings in SWS and
Pulse Asia surveys.
The “image management team” is
composed of:
Virgilio Bugaoisan, who has been Nograles’
media relations handler since 2001 and a veteran of election-related
media campaigns.
Reggie Velasco, a long-time PR practitioner and
Secretary-General of Kampi.
Ed Malay, also a long-time PR practitioner and
spokesman of former President Fidel V. Ramos.
Bong Serrano, also a PR practitioner and a
political officer of Lakas-CMD.
They are experts in media and public relations
whose primary task is to increase public awareness of what the House
of Representatives is really all about.
They will also serve as the Speaker’s
alter-ego in running the the public affairs and media relations arm
of the House of Representatives.
“With them working for my team, I am confident
that we will achieve a great degree of success in our image-building
campaign for the House of Representatives,” Nograles said earlier.
Nograles has launched “Project Discovery”
which aims to review the talent and skills of each House personnel.
Then they can be “tapped for jobs appropriate for them.”
Nograles said he is determined to weed out ghost
employees and reorganize redundant positions.
“I don’t believe that anyone has a monopoly
of wisdom. I am a team player and I believe that four heads are
better than one. The team that I created brought with them various
expertise and I’m quite impressed with the various image-building
proposals that they have submitted to me,” Nograles said.
How to make the Speaker more accessible to the
public is one of the image management team’s challenges.
Among the projects that are now in the pipeline
is the creation of a website which will contain the details of every
congressman’s countrywide development fund and provide a tracking
mechanism on the status of their PDAF-funded projects.
Another project is to make the House of
Representatives more accessible to the public by organizing a weekly
public tour for students, local government officials, barangay
officials and even local and foreign tourists in coordination with
the Department of Tourism.
A brochure explaining how the legislative mill
works and a map of the Batasan complex will be also provided to
visitors.
The schedules of committee hearings for
legislative measures will be also published in nationally circulated
dailies to allow more public participation in the deliberation of
these bills. This is hoped to ensure high-quality legislation.
The House journal which provides a detailed
account of the chamber’s plenary proceedings will be also
developed into a more “readable form” and will be distributed to
the country’s top corporations and government institutions to give
them a glimpse of what measures are being discussed on the floor.
Also being considered is a live television
coverage which will not only provide the public a blow-by-blow view
of the plenary proceedings but at the same time discourage
absenteeism and tardiness among congressmen.
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