Dean’s Listers Grope for Common Sense

Now we know that intelligence alone does not guarantee competence.

It was a dousing lesson imparted by the rampaging waters of Ondoy and Pepeng which claimed the lives of hundreds of our countrymen and wreaked incalculable devastation. Not the least untouched was Gloria Arroyo who once boasted that she had the making of a great president of a strong republic. But all this rotten presidential timber could do while our people shivered in their famished state was to bark at her minions to open the gates of Malacanang in a melodramatic if desperate show of control. Control it was not but a contemptible unravelling of ineptitude and callousness.

Gloria’s was not the only farce exposed and face unmasked. Her fair-haired anointed and disaster czar, Gibo Teodoro, was revealed in all his inglorious weakness as his facade of competence got swept away by Ondoy.

Gibo, the much-extolled Harvard alumnus and chair of the National Disaster Coordinating Council, was caught flat-footed with nary a clue much less a plan for disaster relief. He, the intellectual, was groping, groping and groping for common sense which came in handy to the ordinary citizens who readily responded to the deafening cries for help. His top-notch score in the Bar exam dismally failed to match the grit of the ordinary citizens who plunged into the urgent task of helping and saving the people. It took him more or less three days to conceive and organize a plan and when he finally found the practical judgment to drag his paralytic leadership into action, his first competent act was to reach out to the world with a mendicant’s arm, pleading for help because the council he heads is depleted of funds and strategies.

The very wealthy presidential aspirant turned himself into an official beggar because as top brass of the agency specifically tasked to lead operations during calamities, he failed to replenish the NDCC funds way ahead of time in preparation for emergencies like Ondoy and Pepeng. What we saw was a reactive response rather than a proactive program. Obviously, no contingencies were ever drawn from the lessons of past disasters let alone a comprehensive/holistic plan for disaster prevention, management, rescue and rehabilitation. Such lapses are unforgivable.

It is easy to say natural calamities are hardly manageable as Gloria implied. While we cannot placate the wrath of Nature nor still the storms, we can visualize, nay, we have seen the overwhelming power of the elements and surely we can draw up our defense or damage-minimizing strategies from past destructions. The NDCC should have taken inputs from the July 16, 1990 killer earthquake which reduced Baguio City into a rubble and the Ormoc flashflood tragedy in 1991 which claimed the lives of more than 8000 people. Then, perhaps, it would have been more prepared for these recent calamities.

But overall, our leaders have a myopic view of governance. They cannot and will not adopt a cumulative approach where the programs of each administration are assiduously implemented as a fundamental and necessary phase towards the completion of a visionary design for management and progress. They should look beyond their terms of office and envision our country a century hence but this is too much to expect from a system steeped in parochial interests and personal ambitions.

Meanwhile, we continue to debate on the qualities of our next leaders also from a short-sighted perspective. We can see far ahead, we dream big dreams, we can be idealistic with life-changing passion and commitment but social and political realities temper our utopian vision of a redeemed and evolving Philippines. So we take things one step at a time and according to urgency.

For now, the most urgent is to stem the national bleeding from this institutionalized corruption and I dare say it is a good start.

But now we see once again, as it was proven once more, that intellectual giants, if not steered by sincerity, probity and principles, do shrink and fumble through storms like headless bantams.