Misplaced tolerance

Strategic Perspective
René B. Azurin

OFTEN, executives (particularly chief executives) publicly scold their subordinates and display fits of temper in the view of everyone just to cover up their own shortcomings and inadequacies. Observers of management are quite familiar with this tendency and students of human behavior have written some interesting cases on the subject. Such watchers could rightly conclude that President Aquino -- through his term so far, from his sullen disavowal of any responsibility for the bungling of the Hong Kong tourists hostage incident (early in his administration), to his periodic public castigations of agency heads and bureaucrats even in his State-of-the-Nation addresses, to his recent placing on local officials the blame for his government’s perceived-to-be poor response to the Typhoon Yolanda calamity -- offers a current, televised example of such churlish executive behavior.

But that is a criticism of Mr. Aquino’s government and many people have taken the somewhat reasonable position that the time for finger-pointing must be deferred for later, after the millions of victims of the Yolanda tragedy have been properly supplied with food, water, medical aid, and shelter. Indeed, even if I had not yet myself publicly criticized the government’s relief efforts, I have been rebuked by some friends for privately expressing my dismay -- this was six days after the event -- at what looked like the frightfully slow pace of the government response to the terrible catastrophe. A common sentiment I heard was that we private citizens should just take out our wallets and contribute whatever we could to help fellow countrymen in desperate need, and that complaining about government is "playing politics" and would only hinder the relief effort. In short, ante up or shut up.

It has to be noted, however, that it was Mr. Aquino who first started pointing fingers, blaming local government officials who, he said, "failed to properly prepare for the disaster." Then, ignoring the reality that local facilities were in fact almost totally wiped out by the super typhoon and that local officials were themselves victims of the disaster, Mr. Aquino claimed that local governments should be the "first responders" and that the national government would only step in "if more is needed." Given the immediately obvious massive scale of the disaster, I think that that was an unbelievably callous and distinctly unfeeling position to take. Actually, many of those who watched Mr. Aquino on TV thought that his manner conveyed great irritation and a curious absence of empathy. 

Mr. Aquino also said that help from the national government was held up by the need for "enough data" for the relief effort. In explaining this incredible statement, Mr. Aquino was quoted as saying, "Where will you send the troops? Where will you send the medicines?" Oh wow. Excuse me, Mr. President, but everyone watching or listening to the news coverage on the very day of that super storm would already have known where to send the troops and the relief goods. If those hadn’t been pre-positioned (as they should have been), those should have been dispatched as soon as the weather lifted, which it did in the afternoon of that same day.

In disasters of this magnitude, it should be obvious that only the national government would have the resources for a rapid and effective response. Only the national government can deploy the army, navy, and air force assets, the heavy equipment and technical expertise of the Department of Public Works and Highways, and the trained manpower of the national police force and the national relief agencies. These resources, not available to local governments, are critical to rescue and emergency relief efforts. In fact, the society as a whole places such resources in the hands of the national government for precisely such purposes. 

In addition, it should still be vividly in the mind of all how Mr. Aquino stubbornly defended his presidential pork barrel on the basis of calamities like Yolanda. So, taxpayers should be entitled to ask, given the hundreds of billions of pesos placed in presidential hands as discretionary lump sum allocations, why were these not seen to be immediately available to help the typhoon victims? One could even ask (given the huge amounts in those presidential discretionary funds) why it would even be necessary for private citizens to contribute more for the relief effort. Of course, the Filipino, being naturally generous and compassionate, willingly does so, but of what use would such contributions be if the government can’t get the delivery system right?

Personally, I think that making government aware of perceived shortcomings helps overcome those shortcomings and gets aid to the victims of the disaster more quickly.

Is expressing dissatisfaction with the sluggish government response to the calamity "playing politics"? Perhaps it is. I think, though, that the problem with us Filipinos is that we tend to treat "politics" as a separate part of our existence, as something that can be set to one side and handled independently of the problems we encounter in our lives. Unfortunately, politics is central to all our problems as a nation and as a people. Indeed, it is THE problem. Choosing ill-prepared and incompetent leaders is politics, and this is the problem. Having national government officials hold off aid to cities and municipalities because their mayors are in the opposition is politics, and this is the problem. Watching public officials plunder the nation’s treasury and deplete our resources for development is politics, and this is the problem.

Spokesmen and drumbeaters of the president never tire of saying that he is introducing reforms in our system of politics. They really should stop saying that because it only triggers the immediate rejoinder, what reforms are you people yakking about? In truth, the president has already clearly demonstrated that he is utterly against political reform by steadfastly opposing the abolition of the pork barrel system that is a key feature of patronage politics. 

Tolerance is a well-advertised Filipino virtue but, misplaced, it is a serious defect. We tolerate incompetence in our officials because we don’t want to embarrass anyone by pointing it out. We tolerate corruption in government because we think we can’t do anything to change it anyway and, besides, we might even benefit from it. We tolerate not having our votes counted and being stripped of our democratic right to elect our leaders because our personal economic interests dictate that we do not challenge the mighty powers that be.

If we keep silent about the high-level bungling of the Yolanda relief effort, that is misplaced tolerance. If we keep silent about the hypocrisies and inadequacies of our leaders, that is misplaced tolerance. If we keep silent about the almost fatalistic way we seem to accept whatever fate visits on us as a people, that is misplaced tolerance.