Much ado about Superbrands award

THE next time you read Superbrands giving an award to an individual or person give yourself a break and don’t swallow the claims hook-line-and sinker. Superbrands is a seal accorded a product on the bases of its market dominance, longevity, goodwill, customer loyalty and market acceptance.

Superbrands started in London and it became an institution that recognizes products which had attained a distinction based on the above cited criteria. For Superbrands Philippines to award that SEAL of excellence to an individual is incredulous and smacks of an insidious agenda and is therefore fecal. I regret having to interrupt the orgasmic interlude of the likes of Councilor Joanne Bonguyan who was extremely ecstatic about the “prestigious international brand” of Rep. Karlo Nograles. Any which way you look at it, Karlo will never get that seal for his brand of lawmaking because there is no such thing.

I personally called Superbrands Philippines to inquire whether the award given to Karlo gives a Superbrands seal. The lady on the other end who refused to give her name said that they have this “coffee table book” where Rep. Karlo Nograles is featured. Wikipedia describes a coffee table book as a “hardcover book that is intended to sit on a coffee table or similar surface in an area where guests sit and are entertained, thus inspiring conversation or alleviating boredom. They tend to be oversized and of heavy construction, since there is no pressing need for portability. Subject matter is generally confined to non-fiction, and is usually visually oriented like a photo book. Pages consist mainly of photographs and illustrations, accompanied by captions and small blocks of text, as opposed to long prose. Since they are aimed at anyone who might pick the book up for a light read, the analysis inside is often more basic and with less jargon than other books on the subject. Because of this, the term ‘coffee table book’ can be used pejoratively to indicate a superficial approach to the subject.”

I would credit Karlo for his 4,000 plus scholars and I will not be surprised if these students will root for the congressman in the coming election. The other citations claimed as achievements are proposed bills, which are still under deliberation. The list did not include the bill authored by Karlo which would privatize the Davao City Water District. If the Freedom of Information Bill hardly made it to the final lap how much more for bills of lesser significance.

It looks like Superbrands Philippines came out with the book for profit and the credits they gave to the dozens of individuals who are featured in the book are purely on the basis of perception of their writers. No wonder the featured persons can be an object of pejorative talk because the treatment of subject is superficial and tends to be commercial than detailed and exhaustive. I do not think that it is fair for the political propagandists to drag Superbrands London into their press releases as if to impress us that the “award” has the blessings of the internationally prestigious institution. My mother-in-law has a phrase for that: “Ano ka hilo?”

Abraham Lincoln has another admonition: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”