Honesty at ground zero

Come now, now that we have the benefit of hindsight: how should government have handled things in the aftermath of Yolanda?

It’s a good  question to raise now, given the uproar that continues to percolate in cyberspace, where social media and blogs are boiling over with disappointment, frustration and downright hatred over the way the government has been handling things.

Oh, but before proceeding, let me make it clear that  I don’t intend to defend President Noy and Secretary Mar – I am sure they are capable of defending themselves.  Besides, it is plain to see that, aside from the fact that the unprecedented catastrophe that visited us brought  unprecedented problems, many of which were even beyond human comprehension, the President and his secretary’s insensitivity to the realities on the ground did help fuel the anger that continues to seethe among the citizenry. Somehow, they both deserve some of the backlash.

But I am raising the question mainly on the rhetorical dimension, and perhaps so we can truly learn lessons here. Yolanda, after all, isn’t the last of the horrific storm systems that visited the country; intelligent estimates  point out we are the third most likely country through which coming typhoons will rip through. So, the question as to what should have been done before and right after Yolanda smashed our islands now assume significance, even now as we continue to struggle putting order into our disaster response program, or whatever it is that we have out there.

Here we have several islands and islets, which are difficult to go to even in normal times, bearing the brunt of the super typhoon: communication lines went down, roads and bridges were rendered impassable, thousands are missing, food and water supply and livelihood were wiped out and thousands of bodies are strewn around. It is a scenario we have never seen, much less handled, since perhaps the last war, and for this generation, that war is something we only read in history books; many of our parents and grandparents who had lived through that war are now dead.

My point here is simple. This was a disaster of epic proportions, presenting to us problems that are beyond spontaneous solutions. I don’t think there was anybody here, even those trained for disaster response, who was prepared enough to handle the million and one problems spawned by the calamity, much less anticipate them. For one, ground zero here spanned several islands and islets.

And that, I think, was where the problems of PNoy and his government started: their failure to honestly accept the scale of the problem. Considering how PNoy is perceived, first and foremost, as an honest man, it was a fatal mistake for him to have attempted, consciously or unconsciously,  to downplay the problem. It was horrible for example, for PNoy to have pooh-poohed that businessman who had complained about the breakdown of peace and order and sought martial law. I was shot at, the businessman complained. But you did not die, was the arrogant retort of the President to whom everyone had looked up for some sense of direction in what was a  horrific and hopeless situation. The arrogance was biting, to say the least.

And then, we read about how touchy the government was about the fatality figures, and how that police general who claimed there were 10,000 dead, was relieved of his position. Henceforth, the government proclaimed, the figures will come from only  one source, and that is the national disaster response coordinating council. There was Korina Sanchez, wife of Roxas, disputing CNN’s Anderson Cooper about government presence in the disaster areas.

And Roxas himself, insisting that the dead bodies CNN saw on the ground are the same everyday, meaning new ones surface each day because the old ones were already collected.

Again for a government that prides itself for being honest, what was this preoccupation with details? So what if there were 2,000 or 10,000 dead? Will the efforts to rebuild these ravaged islands be any less? Or the embarrassment be any lesser? Then to complete the picture of how insensitive this government is, came tax woman Kim Henares smugly proclaiming she will tax donations; I wonder how she will do it, when the government hardly has the manpower to even properly distribute the relief goods.

This was a natural disaster of biblical proportions. No one expected anyone to address the problems without hitch. Even the United States government hobbled in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, unable to find its footing immediately, and it wouldn’t have been embarrassing for a country like our to admit our incapability.

And therein, I think, is the biggest lesson we should learn from Yolanda: to be always honest and candid about our situation because, as always, only in honesty shall we find our way to redemption.*

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