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December 17, 2025 | 12:00am

It is tough being Filipino abroad these days. The corruption scandal has been reported by international media. This corruption story paints an image for the country and for Filipinos that can be embarrassing.

The country’s economic vital signs are showing a challenging 2026. BBM and our politicians in Congress should take this problem seriously but unfortunately, they haven’t learned. They are insisting on soft pork in the 2026 budget. If this crisis of confidence gets deeper, investors and tourists will hesitate to come even more.

Throwing more money into our problem isn’t the answer. Still, the Department of Tourism is getting a P1 billion budget to finance a national branding campaign.

This budget isn’t much as international branding campaigns go. But it is historically big for the Philippines. According to the DOT, its promotion budget was slashed to P100 million this year, from P200 million in 2024 and P1.2 billion in 2023. For 2026, they are asking for a P500-million budget. They are getting a billion but still hardly competitive.

At the current exchange rate of about P59 to the US dollar, that seemingly big P1 billion budget only amounts to about $17 million. That’s not going to buy much for a serious branding campaign.

Unless we come up with a more targeted campaign (none of this love love thing), that billion pesos would be wasted just as we wasted the smaller budgets in the past. We always forget that a campaign that does not respond to what a target market expects is wasted.

We always produce gimmicky campaigns that appeal to Filipinos approving them and irrelevant to the tourist we say we want to attract.

Also, we must do some homework first. Our tourism numbers suck because the ordinary visitors who do come are not always treated well. With social media, a taxi driver overcharging a visitor can get viral very quickly. Here is what an OFW wrote me:

“During my recent visit to London, I learned that my colleagues there were scammed just two months ago while visiting the Philippines. One expat was offered a taxi at NAIA Terminal 3 to a hotel in Makati and was charged P5,000. Another expat, who only needed to transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1, was charged P7,000.

“I arrived tonight, Nov. 29, at NAIA Terminal 3 and witnessed the same scheme — something I have been seeing for almost two decades as an OFW. The same faces still lurk around Terminal 3, preying on OFWs, expats and tourists.

“It is truly shameful that nothing substantial has been done to eliminate these taxi scams. Legitimate yellow taxis, which should have a flag-down rate of P70, are strategically placed at the farthest end of the arrival bays, while the scammers occupy the prime locations, waiting for their next victim.”

I recall that some years ago when Cebu was preparing for a major international conference, the local officials required taxi drivers to attend seminars. The idea was to make them realize that they represent the best of Filipinos and should treat guests with the best hospitality we are supposed to be known for.

I am not sure if that worked but when officials take time to make partners out of everyone involved in making tourism a success, even the ordinary taxi drivers will decide it is their duty to behave.

In the case of NAIA, it had long been a hotbed of criminal syndicates of taxi drivers who are known to even waylay balikbayans. Controlling the taxis at NAIA is DOTr’s responsibility since the airport police and the LTFRB are under their supervision.

I watched a special report from Channel News Asia that investigated why the Philippines is losing tourists when there is a travel boom in Southeast Asia. They interviewed our tourism secretary. I hope she watched the completed report and learned something.

The report said nothing we do not know. First, we have a bad perception problem. Visitors are warned by their governments they are unsafe here. There were a few high-profile reports of Koreans being victimized in our streets.

That’s a pity because Koreans are our top visitors after the Chinese vanished. Good to know that our local police are trying to learn Korean so they can better help our Korean visitors.

Inadequate infrastructure is the other major problem that makes us a difficult place to visit. Since we are an archipelago and most of our top attractions are islands, airports and seaports are important. We don’t have enough good ones.

As for road traffic jams, that’s hopeless. Just bring the tourists directly to Boracay, Palawan and Siargao. Use PPP to make their airports capable of taking in Airbus 320s and declare these places international ports of entry. Let tourists enjoy our beaches right away. Skip Manila.

Tourists skip Jakarta and go directly to Bali. In Thailand, they fly directly to Phuket.

The other major problem: our hotels are more expensive than in the better developed tourist areas of Thailand and Vietnam. I think our hotels are expensive because we do not have the economies of scale Thailand has.

Maybe if our hotels do a better marketing job in cooperation with the airlines and the host LGUs of tourism sites, the cost of a room night can become more competitive. That means we need sharper marketing, better focus on the market segment we want to attract and work on providing what that segment wants.

Perception is reality. The international perception of our country is pretty bad. All that talk of corruption justify visitor fears of being scammed upon arrival at immigration and customs.

We must be seen as a country that is under the rule of law. BBM must bring down the temperature on political anxiety from the corruption scandal. After all, no tourist wants to visit a country with a good chance of having a coup.

Boo Chanco’s email address is [email protected]. Follow him on X @boochanco