“The buck stops here.”

That wasn’t the maxim that governs the public service of Christina Codilla Frasco. Christina is a lawyer whose expertise is supposedly legal management. Instead, she passed the buck to the marketing communicator Doyle Dale Bernbach Philippines even if she signed on it. She absolved herself of the responsibility of the plagiarized tourism promotional video. The buck didn’t stop with her.

Let’s use the world’s standard on her. And for that, she can take the cue from Jurgita Kazlauskiene.

“I have decided to step down as the head of the state tourism department” of Lithuania, said Jurgita in 2017. An ad campaign that was produced under her watch – she signed on it like Christina did – used photos of Finland and Slovakia from Shutterstock and Flickr and passed them off as Lithuania.

Lithuanian social media netizens posted mock photos of international landmarks and captioned them as Lithuanian – exactly like how Pinoy netizens behaved with Frasco’s “Love the Philippines.” Fortunately, Lithuania did not have a stage mother like Cebu Governor Gwen Garcia who summoned all her loyal mayors and congressmen to cry that her daughter Christina was being smeared and sabotaged.

Gwen need not fret and manipulate her Cebu political vassals. In February 2023, with no need of sabotage and smear, dear daughter Christina committed her greatest booboo that no buck ever stops with her.

The credit for that goes to Alvin Tan Sheng Hui, Minister of State for Culture of Singapore, Christina’s counterpart in the island state. Every year, all the tourism ministers of ASEAN meet and exchange views on tourism cooperation among its member nations. At the 26^th Asean Tourism Forum held in Yogyakarta, Indonesia on February 2-5, 2023, Christina did the most brazen act that renders her sense of moral ethics highly questionable.

Alvin Tan had posted a photo of the barefaced Frasco act on his social media account. Christina handed Tan a give-away gift. It was a transparent plastic bag that featured the red livery of Titay’s Otap. We can only imagine it contained the baked products of the Frasco family business that goes by the brand of Titay’s (Margarita Frasco, her husband’s ascendant, founded Titay’s in 1907).

But here’s the scandalous part: the bag had the photos of Christina Frasco and her husband Duke Frasco, the congressman of Cebu province’s 5^th district. We can only imagine this was the Frascos’ standard gift to their political supporters. But at the ASEAN Tourism Forum in Indonesia, Christina successfully exported epal to the world. (N.B. epal: douchebag, show boater, attention grabber, shameless self-promotion).

Immediately, two ethical questions arise. Was the Titay’s Otap give-away gift paid for by Philippine government funds? Even if Christina says no, another question arises: who stands to benefit from that gift – is it not the Frasco family business, using her official position in government? Christina ought to be investigated.

Christina also lied. She said the plagiarized tourism video was first unveiled to the public during the Department of Tourism’s 50^th anniversary bash. She had given her imprimatur to show the new promotional video during that event (hence that it was a “mood video” for internal use only is now established as a lie). This took place last June 27 at the Tent City of the Manila Hotel. The President and the past living tourism secretaries attended.

June 27, right? Indonesian Tourism and Creative Economy Minister Sandiaga Uno said otherwise. At the World Tourism Organization Regional Commission Meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia held last June 15, Christina authorized the debut of the plagiarized video.

Uno told the Jakarta Globe, according to a Business Mirror report, that he saw the video in Cambodia and was intrigued by the paddy field scene: “I thought to myself ‘it looks like an Indonesian scenery.’”

And there you have it, folks. The contract with DDB Philippines may have been terminated, but it omits the accountability factor – it doesn’t go all the way to Christina who was the approving authority. The buck doesn’t stop with her.

How much more will Christina Codilla Frasco destroy us before the world?

Christina has no need for sabotage or smear campaigns. She is an effective self-destructing machine. She has been honed by her trapo political upbringing accustomed to exacting feudal obeisance from their political followers.

Charge her please, Ombudsman. – Rappler.com