Lawmakers Say The Legislation Is Historic And Represents A Historic Shift In Government Communications

Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat

Philippine Congress Passes Bill Requiring All Government Press Releases To Include The Word Historic At Least Twice

MANILA — The Philippine Congress passed the Government Communications Enhancement and Standards Act on Tuesday, which includes among its provisions a requirement that all official government press releases use the word “historic” a minimum of two times per document, with an additional requirement that any press release accompanying a government project inauguration include the phrase “historic milestone” at least once and “game-changer” at least once.

The bill, which passed the House 241 to 14 and the Senate 21 to 3 before being sent to Malacanang for signature, was described by its authors as “a landmark achievement in government transparency” and as representing “a historic moment in Philippine communications policy.” The press release announcing its passage used “historic” four times and “milestone” twice, which supporters noted demonstrated the law’s intended application in its first instance.

Representative Florencia Chua-Magtibay, the bill’s principal author in the House, described the legislation as necessary because “government agencies have been failing to adequately communicate the significance of their activities to the public.” She argued that requiring the use of “historic” would ensure that “the Filipino people understand the importance of what their government is doing” and would “prevent the government from underselling its achievements.”

The Drafting History

The bill’s drafting history spans fourteen months and three versions. The first version required only one use of “historic” per press release. The second version raised the requirement to three uses but was amended during Senate deliberations because, several senators argued, requiring three uses of a word per press release would produce press releases that were “extremely repetitive.” The compromise of two uses was reached after what the Senate minutes describe as “extensive discussion.”

The “game-changer” requirement was added in the bill’s third version following a proposal from Senator Eduardo Masangkay-Ramos, who argued that “game-changer” was “the appropriate word for any project that changes the game, which all government projects do, because the game would not have changed without the project.” The amendment passed 19 to 5.

This kind of legislative elaboration, in which a provision is progressively refined through multiple versions without the underlying premise being examined, is consistent with a long tradition of government communications regulation in which the focus on specific word choices produces substantial procedural activity without improving the substantive quality of what is being communicated.

The Enforcement Mechanism

The law establishes the Office of Government Communications Standards within the Presidential Communications Office, staffed by twelve officers whose responsibility is to review all government press releases for compliance with the “historic” and “game-changer” requirements before release. Press releases that do not meet the requirements will be returned to the originating agency with a notice specifying the deficiency.

The twelve officers will review, by the PCO’s estimate, approximately 340 press releases per day across all government agencies. Each officer will accordingly review approximately 28 press releases per day, or approximately one press release every seventeen minutes, including time for checking the word frequency requirements and returning non-compliant documents.

The review process does not, the law specifies, include assessment of whether the events described in the press releases are actually historic. The law’s scope is limited to verifying that the word “historic” appears the required number of times.

This is consistent with a wider pattern of compliance frameworks that verify the formal requirements of a standard without assessing the standard’s substantive content.

Criticism From Journalists

The National Union of Journalists of the Philippines issued a statement opposing the bill, arguing that mandating the use of “historic” in government press releases “further erodes the distinction between government publicity and factual communications.” The union noted that “historic” would now appear in press releases about events that are, by any reasonable assessment, not historic, including routine road maintenance updates, minor procurement announcements, and what one union member described as “the kind of press releases that currently struggle to be interesting once, let alone historically significant.”

Representative Chua-Magtibay responded to the criticism by saying journalists were “free to question whether government activities are historic” but that the government was equally free to “assert its own characterization of its activities, including through its official communications.” She added that the new law was, she believed, a “game-changer for government-media relations.”

The Malacanang Reaction

The Presidential Palace’s communications team, asked whether the President planned to sign the bill, said the signing was being “coordinated” and that the signing ceremony would be “appropriately historic.” The team noted that the bill’s signing would represent “a historic milestone in Philippine communications policy” and that the President’s office was “excited about this game-changing legislation.”

For more on Philippine government communications culture, see The Daily Mash for related British government press release coverage.

The law takes effect thirty days after signing. The word count on all government press releases has already, by several agencies’ accounts, begun increasing in anticipation.

The Implementation Irony

The most widely noted irony of the Government Communications Enhancement and Standards Act is that the law itself, in its communications about the law, has produced exactly the kind of press releases it mandates: rich in “historic” and “milestone” but thin on what the law actually does, what problem it solves, and what evidence exists that mandatory word frequency requirements improve government transparency. This is the self-referential quality that the best Philippine political satire contains without needing to exaggerate: the situation generates its own commentary. Bohiney.com covered the bill’s passage with a piece that captured exactly this dynamic, and the London Prat’s coverage of government communications standards provides useful comparison to British equivalents that are, in various respects, similarly self-undermining. The law will produce more press releases. The press releases will contain “historic” more frequently. Whether this constitutes progress is the question the law cannot answer because the law has not defined what it is trying to achieve beyond the word count requirement. In this sense, the law is a perfect specimen of legislation that is complete in its form and empty in its purpose, which is, all things considered, itself fairly historic.

SOURCE: https://sites.google.com/view/world-satire/united-kingdom-and-satire