GIVE ME AN "A"!...GIVE ME AN "M"!...GIVE ME AN "M"!

My, my, how time flies. Has it already been a year since the last ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM)? Seems like just yesterday I was sneaking off and hunting down VNC shoes for the LLDDL in Kuala Lumpur (actually, it was just yesterday that I was sneaking off and hunting VNC down shoes for the LLDDL! Only in Glorietta instead of Suria. eh. The places look alike anyway).

So our turn as chairman of ASEAN is finally coming to an end, and we want to leave on a high note. The Cebu Summit last January went well enough for me, but there’ll always be those who’ll choose to remember the typhoon and postponement instead. Whatever. All we know is, this time, we have a bigger headstart, the thing is in our homecourt, and – honestly - after Cebu, is there anything that can take us by surprise anymore?

In a word: No.

This time around, everyone goes about their business with a veteran’s confidence and swagger. The number of visiting country delegations is almost double that of Cebu, but we have a lot more time and space to work with, most facilities are already in place, and people already instinctively know what to do, where to go, and who to turn to. In fact, preparations are so far along, some people talk as if they actually miss the challenges of Cebu, like Grandpa Simpson going on one of his rambles. “What’s that? Your laptop just lost its wi-fi? Let me tell you, in Cebu, we didn’t NEED wi-fi! We walked five miles through the snow to get to the highest tree and signal the next island to crank up the dial-up connection of their UNIVAC! You people are a bunch of babies! I'm going to take a nap...”

Well, grandpa, if there was a “ready-or-not, here they come” feel to things in Cebu, we got a “let’s get this party started” vibe going on right now. So let’s DO get this party started, ‘cause before you know it, it will be ASEAN Summit time all over again.

And Ka-Ching!apore TM has rehearsals scheduled for Monday.

Team Building

I got drafted for Liaison Officer duty again this conference, and I couldn't have been happier. I had a blast being an LO in Cebu, and the organizers were so far advanced in their preparations this time around that all the other LOs arrived from around the world a fulll month ahead of the event, and we actually had time for a team building/seminar weekend. Now I'm usually against working on Saturdays and Sundays, but a catered lunch is a catered lunch. So bond, LOs, BOND!

Day One of Team Building. As you can see, we reported to training camp slightly out of shape.


(WARNING: SHAMELESS MATT DAMON REFERENCE AHEAD) With all the laptops and floor plans lying around, the place had the feel of an Oceans Eleven caper.


A hilarious communication exercise. The LOs were divided into two groups, about 15 a side. A figure would be flashed to the first LO, who had to draw it in 10 seconds. He then would flash his drawing to to the second LO, who had to make his own drawing to be flashed to the next LO, and so forth. No one could talk or show their drawings to anyone else. If you zoom in to the picture above, you'll see the original figure was an owl. By the fourth drawing, the figure had somehow become a stick-figure horse. By the ninth drawing onwards, the figure was cross between an insomniac bunny and Casper the ghost.


An indispensable part of every team-building, the cheering contest. Our group's cheer was to spell AMM and then chant it like a Buddhist mantra (you had to be there). The group above started strong, but for some reason finished with "The Spaghetti Song" by the Sex Bomb Dancers. If only our principals knew.

Convoy Dry Runs

Oh GOD, those dry runs. They'd go on until 4am, include briefings/debriefings that would last three times as long as the run itself, and have enough glitches to make Murphy smile. Still, it was all worth it in the end, as all VIPs got around safely and (generally) on time.

One thing you can say about Manila motorists, they all go through a 4-step thought process as a convoy approaches: 1) Pretend I don't hear the convoy, therefore the convoy does not exist; 2) Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear your sirens, but you're probably just some local low-level bureaucrat with bootleg sirens on a joyride/power trip. I'm staying right here in my lane; 3) Oh crap! At least six police motorcycles and cars in my rear-view mirror, all with blaring sirens. You're not fracking around, are you?!; and 4) I will now turn 90 degrees into the next lane, regardless of other cars that may already be there.

Whole process takes about a minute.

(Cebu drivers, on the other hand, were far more efficient: 1) I will freeze in sheer terror and keep a deathgrip on my steering wheel at the sound of the approaching sirens for 10 seconds; and 2) I will now turn 90 degrees into the next lane, regardless of other cars that may already be there)

So what goes in a convoy dry run? First, take a batch of LOs and make them stew overnight (literally) . . .


...add a dash of VIP chauffeurs...


...and coat with a whole lot of men in blue...er...green...er...teal...(damn you, available light setting!)


A dry run doesn't end with the convoy run itself. There's still a debriefing afterwards that can stretch for hours. The debriefing above was held past 12am (there was some comedy relief, though, right after this picture was taken, as one LO came in late, saw all the other LOs seated at the table, then started shouting "Alright! It's midnight! Let's party!". When he didn't get a reaction, he shouted even louder "LET'S PARTY!". What he didn't realize was that no one was reacting because The Boss was already seated at the table but couldn't be seen by the shouting LO. The Boss was not amused.


Game time. Where those long hours pay off. VIP Convoys know the drill by now, it's the additional delegates that have to keep up with us. (speaking of which, I always thought whenever we'd travel abroad that ours was the only delegation that frantically looked around for their car seats. As this picture of another delegation shows, everybody does it like a Chinese Fire Drill. phew)

PICC

I'm on record as saying foreign delegations will remember a beachfront resort more than a generic convention center. That may still be true, but from an organizer's point of view, it was sheer joy to have so much space to play around with in the PICC. No more eating off floors, no more tables jammed against your chest when you sit, no more sexual harassment lawsuits from the constant bumping into one another in hallways. Honestly, when we first walked through the place, I wanted to run around like Macauley Culkin in "Home Alone".

On the flipside, the convention center was so large it took forever to get from one side to another, and you ended up talking yourself out of going places you needed to go. Does my delegation REALLY need to be at Meeting Room 14 to sign that treaty? Can't we just text or YM or something? And, strangely, for all that space, they didn't set up a gift bazaar like they did in Cebu. I mean, where were we supposed to get our dried mango fix?

So memo to Ka-ching!apore TM: get that large (but not too large) convention center with gift bazaar on a beach resort put up, stat. It's the only way I'll be truly happy.

Not quite the Cebu beach view, but not bad.

With its speckled gray concrete, wood and chrome trimming, heavy upholstered furniture, and what I can only describe as disco entrance lighting, lower PICC had a VERY dated feel to it . . .

...but would time warp into modern-day as you went to the higher floors. It was like one of those those New York dance clubs that play 70s music on the ground floor, 80s on the second, etc.


This time around, we got a big-ass secretariat, complete with...


...individual sub-committee rooms (here we see the ever popular gifts sub-committee), each with with a garden view...


... staff dining area (a big hit) ...


...and - this is very important - LO workstation and conference area (just pardon the mess).


Despite the much larger number of visiting country delegations, everyone got a bigger country room. The blown-up photos of Philippine scenery was a nice touch carried over from Cebu.

In Cebu Shangri-La, there were only two dedicated bilateral rooms for the entire Summit. Needless to state, confirmed time slots became valuable commodities to Delegations and LOs alike. In PICC, on the other hand, we had all the rooms we wanted (with Philippine backdrops to boot!). The only problem was that we had the same number of people handling bilaterals as in Cebu. This made for some funny scenes of officers and staff scurrying around all the rooms with flags, chairs and other materials in between meetings.

PICC also had really well-dressed ushers. You couldn't ask for directions to the men's room without them breaking out into song and dance = )

Gala

I got really mixed feelings here. On the one hand, something like 80% of this gala was a repeat of the Cebu gala, right down to stage design, dance steps and narrator's script (I guess they thought if it killed in Cebu, it should kill here, too).

On the other hand, this gala included numbers from the country delegations, and there are few things more entertaining than diplomats taken out of their comfort zone and made to sing and dance.

The fun actually started weeks in advance when the country representatives first met with the show's producers and tried to work out the details of the gala coverage. Some countries expressed no reservations as to media recording the event - heck, some of them wanted their number broadcast live to their country - while others defended their performance's privacy with the intensity of a state secret.

Come showtime, the country delegations did themselves proud. You could see some nervousness on some of the performers faces, but they all gamely pushed on, and the audience loved them for it.

(well, there was this one country that hired professional singers to perform for them, which is kinda like a boss paying his secretary to buy his wife's birthday gift)

Anyway, on with the show.

During the first meeting between the Producers of the Gala and the Delegation representatives, the Director of the show hyped the wrap-around video screen backdrop, the high-tech lighting and cameras, the full musical backups and the other bells and whistles. Instead of being reassured, all the big production talk apparently gave some of delegations stage fright. Others, however, were legitimately giddy to be part of a such a big performance. Either way, they all took pictures of the stage mock-up for sending back home. Diplomats need to get ready for their close-up too, you know!

Gala night. All the pageantry of an awards show, except no one yells "Who are you wearing?". The LOs bring the VIPs up to the lobby entrance, where they are met by the Hosts (above), then are quickly shown to a holding room. What you don't see is the LOs frantically running - in formal wear - behind the horde of cameras and skipping over an obstacle course of cables and cameras to meet up in time with the VIPs at the holding room entrance. You could set the scene to Benny Hill music.

State University Singing Ambassadors at the back, ASEAN (real-life) Singing Foreign Ministers up front. See how it all comes together? I'd give Ebert-like reviews for the rest of the country performances, but lest I reveal a state secret, check out this article instead.

Finally, the show ended as it did in Cebu, with a "Rock Icon" belting out his ASEAN song. The LLDD's bro-in-law gives it a solid 9 on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.

The Money Shot

So here's the situation: as is custom, all the VIPs had a group photo scheduled during the event. For the AMM, the photo op was supposed to take place on the last day, after a lunch meeting on the 4th floor, and on the ground floor red carpet staircase on the other side of PICC that led to the venue for the final meeting and closing ceremonies. The Organizers were well set-up for this.

Turns out, however, about three VIPs had flights to catch and planned to leave even before the lunch meeting. So now we had a problem. If we held the photo-op after lunch as planned, at least three VIPs would be missing from the picture. On the other hand, it would take too much time to bring everyone down right before lunch to the photo-shoot venue at the other side of PICC, and then bring them all the way back up to the site of the lunch meeting.

So a spot decision was made. Hold the group photo before the lunch meeting, but instead of bringing everyone all the way down, take the shot on the roofdeck just outside the lunch meeting room (I actually had the same idea, but was too shy to speak up; damn you social anxiety disorder!). The only thing was, we were not set up for this scenario, the roofdeck was bare, and there were less than 30 minutes before the start of the lunch meeting.

This was turning into a lame half-episode of "24".

(blip...blip...blip...blip...blip blip blip blipblipblipblipblip)

(The following takes place between 12:30 and 12:40pm)

The location, stage, riser, carpet etc. were all set up from scratch in under 10 minutes. Pretty impressive, really.

(The following takes place between 12:40 and 12:45 pm)

To fix the blocking, framing and background, each LO stood in place of his VIP. We all had fun with the moment, knowing this would probably the only time official photographers would ever want to get a picture of us.

(The following takes place between 12:45 and 12:50 pm)

Afterwards, each LO got on his/her knees and taped his country name on the platform (glamorous, this LO life, no?).

(The following takes place between 12:50 and 12:55pm)

We actually finished with a few minutes to spare, so a couple of the LOs decided to stage some bilateral meetings of their own in the holding room.

(The following takes place between 12:55 and 1:00 pm)

And then faster than you can say "regulation of cheese and other dairy products", the VIPs were onstage and the media were happily clicking away. So all's well that ends well . . .

Well, not quite. It's not immediately noticeable, but there's actually one VIP missing from the picture. Seems this VIP decided to go to the men's room first and change into a barong. Meanwhile, all the other VIPs had already made their way to the photo-op stage and were ready and waiting in the sun. Everyone was frantically radioing the missing VIP's LO who, by stroke of bad luck, could not go into the men's room because . . . well . . she was not a man. By now, the media were snapping away and, since this was an outdoor lunchtime shoot, many of the VIPs were already visibly hot and hungry. Some VIPs tried to end the session by yelling "Thank you!" to the media and making a move for the door, but everyone was yelling back "Wait! Wait! Just one more!" The VIPs held back for a couple more seconds, and then finally broke ranks (above) just as the missing VIP was entering the door leading to the photo area. By then it was too late, all the VIPs were already heading towards the lunch meeting, and the LOs were debating the merits of Photoshop vs. Ulead.

LO Life

I'd like to think that all of us LOs were elite, hand-picked, specially trained diplomats trusted with the most difficult official duties. In truth, only about half the LOs were battled hardened veterans of Presidential Protocol specifically called-up for the event, while the rest of us I think were chosen because we had no typing skills.

In the end, though, we all bonded, learned from and covered for each other, and ultimately delivered. It was actually a bit poignant when the whole thing was over and we had to say goodbye and go back to our old assignments.

Man, if we ever got back together, we'd be kick-ass wedding planners!

Before anything else, an LO asks himself "WWJBD"?*

(*what would Jason Bourne do?)


Getting the convoy ready at the airport. Always a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare for an LO, but also good for an adrenalin rush when the principal pops out of the plane and then speeds away from the tarmac.

An endless, tiring LO chore: walking through the venues. This walk-through was well after midnight, and a few hours before the opening ceremony later that morning. You have to "eyeball" everything from seating arrangements to holding areas to men's rooms. And, yes, I used eyeball, seat, hold and men's room all in the same sentence.

Typical LO scene: all dressed up, standing outside the VIP meeting room with the other LOs, constantly looking at cellphones or listening to radios for the latest information from HQ.

Speaking of, special mention should be made of LOs and their radios. The radios are indispensable for tracking activities and operations, but are also an endless source of hilarity. In the first place, most everyone involved is a bureacurat with no military training or background, yet all become Jack Bauer wannabes the moment a radio is placed in their hands. Secondly, some of the radio communications, while necessary to the events, are decidedly . . . um . . . un-military in subject matter. Take for instance attire. No VIP ever wants to be odd-man-out and the only one under or overdressed to an activity, so they task the LOs to find out what everyone else is wearing. The radio exchanges go something like this (I'm not kidding):

LO 1: Break. Marlboro country, come in. This is Banana Republic.
LO 2: Go ahead Banana Republic.
LO 1: Will your VIP be wearing a barong or a suit?
LO 2: Standby . . . (pause) . . . he is wearing a suit.
LO 1: Copy that. Tie or no tie?
LO 2: Tie.
LO 1: 10-4. What color is the suit?
LO 2: Appears to be brown, may be beige. Smart casual. Will confirm.
LO 1: Tango Yankee.
LO 2: Break! Break! (in more urgent voice) VIP is taking off tie. Repeat, VIP is taking off tie! Will go with unbuttoned collar!
LO 3: Short break. This is Clay Nation. What's the menu for tonight?

And so on.

You may think all this is trivial, but its the sort of thing that gets you in the papers. (although I was told that the VIP invloved really chose to wear a barong becuase the event was at the Presidential Palace, and really didn't mind being the only one in the picture in white)


At the start of every meeting, media are allowed in for a few pictures, then are cleared out of the room. Some try to stay on by saying they're with so-and-so or they have super secret clearance. I enjoy clearing media out of a room, I really do =)


For the gala dinner, each LO was measured for a formal barong. Of the close to 30 LOs, less than half had barongs that actually fit. One of the lucky LOs celebrates above.

Long after everyone else has gone to bed, an LO stays up and works on the next day's scenarios.

And in the midst of all the chaos, the LOs manage to throw a surpirse birthday party for one of their own. The set-up: While all the VIPs were in a lunch meeting, the LOs gathered in their own dining area. The Boss (at right) summons the celebrant (at left) over the radio in a stern sounding voice. The celebrant comes rushing in, all nervous. The Boss stays in character and asks what the situation is with the celebrant's VIP. The celebrant now gets really worried, because he was not aware of any situation with his VIP (because, in fact, there was none). While the celebrant tries to gather himself, another LO sneaks behind with the cake, and then we all break out into song (that's my dorky voice you hear on the video). Another successful LO operation.

A Rewarding Experience

Whoever said work was its own reward never received a shiny medal. Us LOs of Foreign Ministers were really not expecting anything other than a pat on the back, but word spread that the Palace had invited everyone involved in the Summit and the AMM over for some sort of ceremony. This led to the existential question: "If an LO is part of a ceremony, does he protocol himself?".

Sure enough, there was a Presidential recognition program and citations were spread all around. You really are filled with pride when you first put the thing on, which you immediately replace with the anxious feeling of "Am I a dork for wearing a medal around my neck during cocktails?"

Whatever. I got mine, I hope others get theirs.

And the whole thing is finally over.

Mabuhi!

Neither rain nor sleet nor snow nor Supertyphoon "Egay" will keep an LO away from picking up his award at the Presidential Palace.


The handpicked LOs of leaders during the Summit get their awards from the President herself ...


... while the LLDD stands outside with his, ready to ride off into the sunset.

(or at least take the rented bus back to the office; it was raining pretty hard)