Kaban ni D_BystandeR: NAWANI SI PANGULONG NOYNOY SA TUKMANG KASAYURAN SA EPEKTO SA BAGYO

This was not just a case of shoulda, woulda and coulda. And Anderson Cooper had nothing to do with it. Notice  that even Philippine media reported similarly. Even without CNN (add to that BBC and Al Jazeera) and the commentaries, the cries from the hungry and homeless survivors of  Supertyphoon Yolanda in Tacloban sounded more than  pleading, to say the least. As the whole world heard the same cries as we did, Malacanang's response (or lack thereof) to the already full-blown-and-still-worsening crisis because all the more baffling with each passing day.

The sobering reality couldn't seem to get into the heads of administration officials. As baffling was the seeming ignorance of the breadth and length of destruction. For example, it was the media that told us that even some small islands off  northern Cebu had been without food and shelter for days. And that no government help had reached them.  The impression President Aquino tried to project in the CNN interview with Christine Amanpour was of a government in control. But the situation on the ground told a far different story. That disconnect now appears to have sent the once much-vaunted popularity of the President into nosedive.  Six days later - remember that six days without food and  water is eternity, and the fact that the whole world was watching - Mr. Aquino announced that he was overall in-charge of the relief operations. Even as that was understood as a tacit admission of Malacanang's shortcomings, the frustration had by then burrowed deep into the public's consciousness and sentiments. The Aquino "charm" had imploded. Did he fumbled or was he "jumbled"?  To be fair with him, no one is expected to emerge an expert from the strongest typhoon in recorded history to hit the land.

 If Mr. Aquino fumbled that's understandable. We can forgive him for that.  But after that Amanpour interview it was clear that he was jumbled. He said that the estimated10,000 deaths could be too high and, apparently  the figure so  irked him that he sacked the police director who reportedly gave that number. President Aquino seemed so fixated on  his pre-Yolanda framework of "zero deaths," he told Amanpour that the around 1,000 deaths reported so far would most  likely not increase substantially. At that time, news reports  were mostly coming from Tacloban or focused on that city. Capiz, Iloilo, Coron and even nearby Eastern Samar and Ormoc were as yet unknown territories. Now that the death toll has reached 3,600 as we write, and still counting and proving the President wrong, we are wondering, were his lieutenants feeding him wrong or guarded information? Was there a cordon sanitaire in the first days following the tragedy? On the same sixth day, Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman and Interior Secretary Mar Roxas reappeared in Tacloban. We know that Roxas was in Tacloban since the day before  Yolanda made a landfall.

When hotel guests were already crying for help, hotel guests claimed Roxas just walked past them, surrounded by bodyguards, unperturbed by the chaos that was starting to unravel. Then he was lost from television cameras - for days. Meantime, Korina Sanchez threw a  tantrum on air over CNN's Anderson Cooper's reporting on the "no-organized" government response and relief efforts in the aftermath of Yolanda. That effectively gave the President minus points from a public that had by then grown depressed over the heart-wrenching images of death and devastation Yolanda left behind. Notice as well that in her interviews, Mr. Aquino would continually refer to the "local government," Tacloban's Alfred Romualdez is not only an opposition mayor, he is a living species of the family that many see as the nemesis of the Aquinos. To be sure, Romualdez's and his wife's recounting of the mayor's "inspecting the ballroom of a family resort" to see how much damage Yolanda was inflicting on it did not register well with the public, which will have to make him accountable for that too. But notice as well that the same references on "local government" as "shoulda, woulda, coulda reacted to the crisis were echoed by Roxas in subsequent interviews coming six and seven days after the fact. Was the Aquino administration, in the long "interregnum" when concrete, effective response and relief efforts from Malacanang were lacking, punishing Romualdez by not coming to the aid of his suffering constituents?

Overnight, the public's pet name "P-Noy" metamorphosed in social media into BS Aquino. Don't ask me what that means. We honor all those who have died in this heart-rending calamity. We honor the woman who slept for nights with the corpses of her three young children because government was nowhere to give them even the decency of a mass burial. We honor the old woman whose only daughter had to leave her in her debilitating condition in order to look for food. We honor each and everyone who now wake up to another day of sorrow they will have to live with for the  rest of their lives. We honor them not because the most powerful man of this country has not, but because it is the rightful and the most humane thing to do. The whole world's humanity, now converging in the Philippines, honors them. Never mind if the most powerful man in the Philippines has not. He does not matter now. He has begun to reveal his irrelevance. He no longer is our leader.

(Bug-os ang  pasalamat sa KAHAYAG ngadto sa magtatampo  nga si JOHNNY LOVE nga nagkutlo sa paambit gikan sa pahayagan, Philippine Daily Inquirer. Nagtakuban siya sa pangalan, "D_BystandeR".  Natawo siya sa Sugbo apan anaa na karon manimuyo sa Illinois sa tinipong nasod sa Amerika. Ang kusog nga koneksyon sa kasayuran pinaagi sa internet kanunayng naghaling sa iyang kadasig  pagtuki sa mga nagbukalbukal nga hisgutanan dinhi sa atong nataran. Usa siya ka magsusulat nga gradwado sa kursong komersiyo padulong sa pagka accountant sa University of San Carlos kaniadtong tuig 1961.  Nahimo siyang miyembro sa usa ka hugpong sa mga batan-ong magsusulat nga gitawag ug STUDENT PRESS.  Nahimo usab siyang   Associate Editor sa basahon  USC-JPIAN sa tuig 1962-63. Magtatampo usab siya isip magsusulat sa nasudnong magasin,  "Philippines Free Press" ug sa mga nag-unang peryodiko dinhi sa dakbayan sa Sugbo sa lunhaw pa ang iyang pangedaron. Nahimo siyang mamumuo sa usa ka pribadong kompaniya sa dakbayan sa Sugbo, ESCAÑO LINES, sulod sa napulo ug duha (12) ka tuig  dayon niyang tapon  ngadto sa NAPOCOR  ug nahimong kawani sa kagamhanan  sulod sa bayente dos (22) ka tuig. Niadtong tunga-tungang bahin sa tuig 2000, nilalin siya ngadto sa tinipong nasod sa Amerika ug sulod sa napulo (10) ka tuig, nagtrabaho siya sa  buhatan sa kagamhanan sa nasod sama  sa  UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE (USPS).  Karon sa pangedaron nga 68,  gihuptan gihapon niya ang walay pagkutat nga kadasig ug walay busganan nga kaikag sa pagpaambit sa iyang nahuptang abilidad  ug kabatid sa panulat.  Dili niya mapugngan ang kaugalingon sa pagpaambit sa iyang mga hunahuna labi na kon molambigit kini ug hisgotanan nga makadani sa iyang mga mata. Makadawat siya sa inyong mga hunahuna mahitungod sa iyang sinulat sa johnnylobedica@yahoo.com)