IT was one of the stupidest things I ever heard. In the aftermath of Taal volcano’s phreatic (steam-driven) explosion, questions about the lack of warning given by Phivolcs were raised by the likeliest of suspects: politicians. They asked why no warning was given about the explosion. The answer is simple: like earthquakes, no one can predict volcanic eruptions. Repeat after me: no one can predict volcanic eruptions.

While it is true that unlike earthquakes, scientists monitoring active volcanoes can detect increased volcanic activity, and increase public warnings accordingly. But they can’t say exactly when, or for certain, when a volcano will choose to erupt. Things just don’t work out that way. It seems, however, that Taal was more restive than usual beginning December, which should have necessitated a closer watch from our government officials.

Which brings to mind this question: who was alive, alert, and awake at the building over the Pasig river when Phivolcs gave its reports? Those who have worked in the presidential office could set their watches by the Phivolcs and PAGASA daily reports: they are faxed every morning at eight on the dot. Every report contains details about activity in the areas they are monitoring, sent to every office that needs to know about the latest developments. Either Phivolcs wasn’t doing its job, or someone else on the other end simply wasn’t paying attention. I doubt that the former was the case.

If our politicians must know, working in the government science bureaus is one of the most thankless jobs. Like most low to mid-level positions, our scientists are paid very little yet they work under the harshest of conditions, relied upon by millions of Filipinos to deliver accurate information in the most stressful of situations. Sadly, while government budget runs on trillions of pesos, very little is allocated to our science offices. Their budget for equipment is also appalling, with your yearly national expenditure programs as evidence.

While those in Phivolcs and PAGASA are not exempt from scrutiny, politicians (especially legislators) should check themselves and ask what kind of budgetary support they provided to the science bureaus to enable them to do their jobs well. Did you vote to give them more budget for personnel and plantilla (regular) positions? Did you vote to increase the budget for their equipment and capital outlay? Did you file a bill to institutionalize additional benefits for them? If not, then sit down, Susan. We don’t need your grandstanding now.

Another possibly disastrous example of politicians setting policy in times of disaster: opening Tagaytay establishments to business while Taal is on alert level 4. Yes, you read that right, dear millennials and fillennials: alert level 4, meaning an eruption is imminent.

By all means, let’s encourage people to go back into a hazardous area when an eruption is imminent, and make life harder for our front-liners when something does go wrong. This is idiocy, pure and simple–one that could cost lives. If that isn’t reckless imprudence, I don’t know what is.

While Phivolcs isn’t perfect, and could use more support in their communications with the public as pointed out recently on Twitter by former Tourism Secretary Mon Jimenez, I am happy to see that many of our younger, more social media savvy geologists are using different platforms to help laypeople understand scientific terms and explain jargon. Seeing how important communications is in times of disaster (yes, we should have learned our lesson from the problem with the phrase “storm surge” during super typhoon Yolanda) will serve as a constant reminder to the next generation of scientists on how to deal with non-science folk in the future. That in itself will already save lives.

Let me end this week’s missive by expressing appreciation to all the CSOs and private groups that have stepped in to help those affected by the eruption. Tens of thousands have been evacuated and are in dire need of help, and there is still no certainty when they can go back to their homes. All your efforts, big and small, greatly help our fellow Pinoys.

Please look up your favorite charity, be it the Philippine Red Cross or RockEd, and see what you can do to help. From Grab drivers taking a day off to deliver relief goods to bystanders wiping down ash-filled windshields, there is no shortage of inspiration from ordinary Filipinos who are once again rising up to the call of the times.

I DIDN’T think it was possible to see another one in the same lifetime, but ash has fallen again in Manila and its surrounding areas. Taal volcano went from being on a perpetual level 1 (it has always been restive) to level 4 in a matter of hours, taking everyone by surprise. By Sunday evening, ash was already falling as far as Meycauayan, Bulacan.

A little bit of history, courtesy of Kris Pasion, @indiohistorian on Twitter: it was also in January back in 1911 when Taal spewed smoke and ash, beginning on the 27th and lasting until February 8. The eruption is said to have been so powerful that it was heard as far as 360 kilometers away. 1,400 people died in that tragedy, with the double wallop delivered by the violent eruption and the succeeding earthquakes.

Social media and private chat groups were abuzz, from sharing photos of the eruption to the sudden frenzy of buying face masks. We didn’t have social media back in 1991 when Pinatubo erupted, and I wonder if behavior would have been the same. Debates about being able to turn on their air-conditioning units went long into the night, and tips for cleaning up when the ash fall stops were passed around.

It’s too early to say whether the devastation will be the same as Pinatubo, where whole barangays were buried in ash. I certainly hope this won’t be the case here. The extent of the impact still unknown and we have a difficult road ahead. The precarious situation with our water supply will be worsened by the cleaning up that entire towns and cities (all necessary, of course) will be doing once the ash fall stops.

Please take care and clean off ash only when necessary. Remember that while it washes off, it will harden and clog our already unmanageable sewers and drains if government does not conduct clean up operations immediately and regularly until the debris is all gone.

It’s too early to tell what kind of rehabilitation will be needed, but I hope government will be ready to respond to the relief and rescue needs swiftly. LGUs in the areas surrounding Taal, like Agoncillo and Lemery, will be in dire need of support for their evacuees. Here’s hoping that the bright boys along the Pasig are alert, awake, and alive, and did not go back to sleep after hearing about the news.

WELCOME to 2020, the start of a new decade. Unfortunately, we’re still stuck in the same age of politics, so we shouldn’t expect much of a difference in the way things are run as a whole. While the midterm elections just concluded six months ago, we can expect pawn pieces to start moving across the political chessboard in preparation for the 2022 presidential elections.

Already, several names are being floating around bruited to be presidential hopefuls. The general public will of course only get confirmation sometime in October 2021 when certificates of candidacy are officially filed (unless someone else pulls another Rodrigo Duterte-like substitution circa 2015) but this early, political junkies are already closely watching the moves of those perceived to be gearing up for the big race.

The Duterte administration will be faced with the same problem that confronted former President Noynoy Aquino back in 2016: how to keep a super majority behind one candidate. Run through the whispered list of hopefuls and you’ll see immediately that many of them are part of the broad coalition under the banner of the administration: several senators old and new, a few local officials among them. I’ll hold off mentioning their names for a later time, just to keep the suspense up.

Of course, Vice President Leni Robredo is an easy choice to run in 2022, by mere force of her current position. Most people naturally assume that she’s an automatic candidate for 2022, in the natural order of things. But like former Vice President Noli De Castro back in 2010, she just may surprise everybody and choose to end her term quietly, in order to focus on her daughters. Again, we’ll never know until the Vice President says anything either way.

Expect alliances to be forged or (quietly) broken this year, as different groups will be watching where the wind blows. Power brokers will be more active this year, albeit quietly, continually approached by would-be candidates and their acolytes to get a better sense of where the political fortunes lie. I have a feeling that the run-up to the presidential elections will be a doozy, and will test President Duterte’s ability to hold his fractured forces together.

The President will certainly be on the lookout for the candidate who will best protect his personal interests when he steps down, given his wish to return to a quiet life after his presidency. It certainly won’t be a quiet retirement if he faces prosecution for his administration’s policy on extra judicial killings or his inexplicable obeisance to China, so you can bet your next paycheck that it is in Duterte’s best interest to pick a candidate that will cover his behind post-presidency.

He certainly won’t be short on choices for would-be successors who will be lining up to court his blessing. Will he make his choice among the politicians who supported him, or will he resort to his tried and tested formula in Davao: fielding one of his own children? What if he fields Sen. Bong Go for the presidency then runs as vice president? It sounds crazy, and it’s never been done, but we’re living in an era where the crazy has become ordinary.

Crazy as it may seem, such a gamble will ensure his continued protection from prosecution, and allow him to disappear from view while holding power for himself. It’s quite obvious that his trust in Go is deep enough to make such an unorthodox plan sustainable, and will allow his children to keep holding court in Davao City. Whether it’s a viable plan or not is obviously up for debate, but check your incredulity at the door and watch how Go’s self-promotion has gone beyond the midterm elections. (The man has even appeared in public service announcements for Christmas lights, if you can believe.)

A Go-Duterte tandem will certainly appeal to the President’s base of fanatics, and it gives them a reason to continue believing in the promised change that was supposed to come in June 2016. Some might ask, why not Mayor Sara? Perhaps she’s proven herself to be a little more independent minded for comfort, given her demonstrated inclination of going against her father’s allies in the past. That one toes the party line when she deems fit, and that particular trait might not sit well with others around the President.

But as with everything in politics, nothing is set in stone. Politicians change their minds as soon as the wind blows in the other direction, and these movements will only be more pronounced as the months pass. For now, we watch, and we wait.

Happy new year, dear millennials and fillennials. May this year be better than the last, for you, your family, and for our beloved country.

SNAPS to Makati Mayor Abby Binay for putting her foot down on the service providers of Philippine offshore gaming operators, commonly known as POGOs. While Makati is not ground zero for the incubation of these businesses from China, (my bet is that this claim goes to Parañaque) the spread has been so prolific that it has reached neighboring cities like Makati, Madaluyong, and Pasig. Long-time residents of Makati cannot ignore the changes in our communities since POGOs started coming in. Apartment rentals in barangays like Palanan, San Isidro, San Antonio and Pio del Pilar have sky-rocketed in the past two years, a fact alluded to by Mayor Binay in her statement announcing that City Hall will no longer accept applications for business permits from POGOs.

These barangays, while traditionally more expensive rent-wise than La Paz or Pitogo because of its proximity to the central business district, was still affordable for ordinary office workers five or six years ago. A young couple I know was forced to move out of their two-bedroom apartment in Palanan due to rising rent, exacerbated by offers from brokers for Chinese companies offering double the price and one year’s payment in advance. Many old families in those areas have relocated elsewhere, instead choosing to lease their properties because of the lucrative price.

Even village associations have been enforcing regulations like hawks, already wise to the ruse of renting a house and filling it with 40 to 50 workers from POGOs. Some property owners, on the other hand, are now refusing to rent out their homes to those from the industry, citing previous experiences that have left their homes in unbelievable disrepair and decay. “It’s just not worth it,” one homeowner told me. “You think that the rent they’re paying is worth it but wait ‘til they leave and you see the carnage.” Villages like Bel-Air and Dasmariñas are running stringent checks on potential leases to make sure that the regulations are followed, stressing that single-family set-ups are preferred.

It’s a bold move from Mayor Binay, considering that the move means losing roughly P200 million in revenue from business taxes. If memory serves, Makati is the first LGU to walk away from the lure of hosting POGOs. And with good reason: apart from insane rental prices, the activities that come with POGOs are less than desirable. I remember joking with a colleague once, while watching news of a police raid on a sex den catering to POGO workers, that the “downstream industry” of online gaming was something else. “When BPOs come to a city, you see small businesses and convenience stores follow. Taxi drivers, tricycles and even balut vendors feel the bump,” he said. “It’s an entirely different downstream industry for POGOs.”

We can’t pretend that it’s not happening, either. You see it all over the news, as police are conducting raids left and right on these sometimes gaudy, sometimes non-descript establishments that yield women trafficked from China or even Vietnam to cater to its patrons. Media has also reported several cases of kidnappings of Chinese perpetrated by their own. It’s something that Mayor Binay knows well, given that these instances have happened quite often in her city. She’s taking a road less travelled, and I’m betting that other LGUs will be thinking twice or thrice before they even follow. The lure of additional revenue might just be too strong, causing them to turn a blind eye to these shenanigans in exchange for collecting taxes. Neighboring cities will certainly benefit from Binay’s decision, as orphaned POGOs will be looking to other areas to relocate and continue operations.

In the long run, Makati and its residents will benefit from Binay’s decision, factoring in the social cost to communities of having these businesses around. The question is, who else will follow suit, and who will remain silent to gleefully collect revenue?

ONLY 27 more days until 2020, and the cliché “time flies” will be on everyone’s lips once again. It seemed only yesterday that folks were chatting about new year’s resolutions and general speculations about what 2019 would bring, and here we are, barely a month away from 2020.

Most folks write retrospectives to usher in the new year. Before the holiday rush settles in, I had some time to think about 2019 and what stood out the most in the public sphere. It was an easy choice to make: 2019 will go down as the year of the protester. From the alleys of Hong Kong to the streets of Chile, protesters have come out in droves to rally against injustices committed by their respective governments. If 2016 brought in the era of the Upside Down (a reference from the extremely popular Netflix series Stranger Things) then, as Anonymous writes: “History has a way of restoring balance.”

From protesting an oppressive extradition bill in Hong Kong to railing against a proposed tax on messaging service Whatsapp in Lebanon, triggers that have unleashed the flood gates of anger vary from country to country. Bolivians took to the streets to protest widespread cheating in the election that gave Evo Morales another term, which resulted in Morales being forced out of office.

One cannot miss the hundreds of thousands of people across the globe marching to raise awareness and spur action on climate change, lamenting that governments have not done enough to address the dying state of our planet. To an extent, the protesters have it right: while governments have acknowledged the massive effects of the climate crisis in our daily lives, not enough has been done to address the problem. Even Antonio Guterres, chief of the United Nations, has called worldwide efforts “utterly inadequate” at COP25. The proof is in the pudding: greenhouse gas emissions have risen to a record high in 2018, despite profuse commitments from politicians to take steps to lower it.

This is one injustice that we don’t pay enough attention to as a nation, which is ironic since the Philippines is one of the countries most vulnerable to the climate crisis. We only need to look at the increasingly devastating effects of typhoons to our communities for proof of the climate crisis.

In the United States, while there are no massive movements like those in Hong Kong or Bolivia, political turmoil has been afoot with the start of impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump. The latest polls show that half of Americans are in favor of impeaching their president, after it was revealed that he initially withheld military aid to Ukraine premised on the latter’s investigation of Hunter Biden, son of former vice president and now Democratic party hopeful Joe Biden. With the US elections in the horizon, and with the Republicans holding court in the US Senate, there’s no telling what will happen should the impeachment come to a trial. One thing is sure: the Democrats are not going down without a fight.

Already, these pockets of resistance are producing results. The most notable success is the one in Bolivia, which resulted in the ousting of Morales. The Hong Kong protesters have been throwing eggs on China’s face every day that China has been unable to quell the protests. And we all know how embarrassing that is for China, which does not tolerate one bit of dissent on its shores. Chilean President Sebastian Piñera fired his entire cabinet, and has thrown out his entire economic agenda in order to placate protesters to get the country back under control.

Those who resist might just rescue the world from the Upside Down, one protest at a time.

ANY change in administration can be viewed in two ways: good, in the sense that it can bring an end to policies that are simply not working the way it was envisioned. Bad, because every administration tends to bring in its own set of flagship programs and can put those identified with its predecessor in the back burner for at least six years. While government budget runs in trillions of pesos, resources are essentially finite: barring a new source of funding, projects are in truth in competition with one another. More budget for one means cutting money out of another. This is perhaps one of the major reasons why the ideal approach to policy-making should be quite precise and well-thought out.

Unfortunately, the firebrand attitude of then-Davao Mayor Rodrigo Duterte during the 2016 campaign did not translate very well to his policy-making approach. The fanatics will howl at this statement, as expected. But the even-keeled only need to look at recent events to come to the conclusion that the country is currently being run on policies based on knee-jerk reactions. First case in point: the rice tariffication law. The administration made it clear that it was being passed to address rising food costs to avert high inflation. It did the trick, and now inflation is at a manageable level. What perhaps was set aside in the mad rush was the effect the law would have on our farmers, who are already desperate for much-needed support from our government. It seems that we have outdone ourselves when it comes to rice importation, as the Philippines, an agricultural county, is now on track to become the second biggest importer of rice in the world (importing 2.6 million metric tons) next only to China’s 4.5 million metric tons. Mind you, China has one billion mouths to feed, and ours only at 110 million.

The subsequent suspension, backtracking on the suspension, and eventual clarification on what the President meant contributed to chaos that ensued. Even the Agriculture secretary was caught off guard with the announcement, and had to rush to Malacañang to get instructions. To be honest, all the flip-flopping had me tuning out of the news cycle, with the hope that they’ll get themselves together a few weeks later and address the matter with clarity.

Next, the vaping ban. Apparently President Duterte woke up one day and decided to declare vaping as the next public enemy. Policy-makers are still scrambling to catch up, and legislators wanting to earn brownie points quickly came out with bills to support the President’s directive. The PNP snapped into action, with a decisive directive to all its personnel that vapers are to be arrested on sight–never mind that they couldn’t point to a law that penalizes vaping. I’m all for measures to help keep our kids off smoking and vaping, but do we have to do it the right way, not because the throne said so. That’s just how it is in a democracy.

Again, chaos has ensued. Legislators and allies can’t seem to make heads or tails of the pronouncement, volleying between supporting total immediate bans and regulating vaping products. So much time wasted trying to divine the royal pronouncement instead of concentrating on other more pressing matters.

Third, the hiring and firing of Vice President Leni Robredo as co-chair of the ICAD, done within a dizzying pace. To begin with, the offer to have the Vice President was borne out of pride–not in her work, but because her criticism of the drug war bruised the ego of the head honcho along the Pasig River. She offended them some more with her *gasp* audacity to accept the challenge, and offended them most when she showed everyone that a knowledge-based approach could be taken to try and solve the problem. It’s embarrassing for the men, really, when VP Robredo stepped up and decimated the myth that only an iron fist can produce results.

She started asking questions they didn’t want to answer, and it caused such a panic that their bullying couldn’t cower her. And so, with a snap of his finger, President Duterte fired Robredo from the post, probably tired of trying to trip her at every turn. No one can say they didn’t try, though: for two full weeks, she was subjected to every inane insult they could come up with, but none resulted in having her toe their line.

It makes for bad optics for the President. I’m sure that while this was whispered in the corridors of the Palace, no one deemed it in their best interest to actually say it out loud to the President’s face. It’s safe to say that we can expect more of this mercurial policy-making to be the norm for the rest of Duterte’s term, which certainly does not bode well for the rest of the country.

VICE President Leni Robredo has dived head first into her work as co-chair of the Inter Committee Agency on Anti-Illegal Drugs, just days after she called President Rodrigo Duterte’s bluff on “leading” his flagship program on the war against drugs. It is apparent that the administration was not prepared for the Vice President to accept, after using their favorite bullying tactics against her for weeks.

A few days in and Robredo is already ruffling feathers of strutting (and quite loud) roosters.

Despite being ridiculed publicly by President Duterte’s rah-rah boys, she continues to immerse herself in the work she’s taken on, talking to experts to gather all the information and data she needs to be guided in her new task. For starters, she’s begun to engage different sectors affected by the drug war, like Mothers Against Drug Abuse and Community-Based Drug Rehabilitation Agency, as well as law enforcement agencies. It’s a good start, and shows her intention to view the fight against drugs from different lenses–not just the barbaric and bloody approach of nanlaban.

Her recent pronouncements are also quite indicative of her understanding of the issue at hand: there must be emphasis on addressing the supply side of the problem (how illegal drugs get to our shores, and stopping it) while approaching the demand side in a humane and compassionate way. I hope that she holds up against the landmines and brick bats thrown at her so she can continue to inject some much-needed sanity and compassion into this initiative.

The bad

The country is in the final stages of preparations to host the 2019 SEA Games from Nov. 30 to Dec.11, with over 530 events housed in 44 venues across the archipelago. It’s quite exciting, and citizens can watch the events over live stream in different media outlets. I hope our athletes do well, and hope that this brings much-needed attention to the needs of our athletes in terms of government support.

Unfortunately, like any major undertaking, questions are now being raised about our preparedness for the hosting. Concerns about uncompleted facilities to IT problems that could affect real-time updating of results and medal tallies, if unaddressed, could dampen the shine of a potentially successful hosting. The already unmanageable traffic can turn into a week-long carmageddon once MMDA implements a stop-and-go scheme to allow our guests to shuttle to different venues. I won’t complain about this measure, though. It is part of our responsibility to make sure the athletes reach the venues on time, but I am hoping that the organizers have carefully planned these measures, especially the ones who shouted themselves hoarse about the traffic we experienced back in 2015 for the APEC Economic Leaders Week.

The ugly

President Duterte’s men have been falling all over themselves to attack Vice President Robredo left and right after she had called their patron’s bluff on the drug war. It seems they have not recovered from the shock, and have only resorted to doubling down on insulting Robredo. The latter’s meeting with representatives of the US Embassy in her capacity as co-chair of the ICAD seems to have struck a nerve, and is apparent from the frenzy these people have worked themselves into that they are quite worried that Robredo will actually trip them up.

From statements of “all out support” from when they were egging her on to accept the post, promising “utmost cooperation” for her efforts to mansplaining why she shouldn’t have access to the list of high value targets and state secrets, it’s quite laughable how these men have completely surrendered their dignity to do their principal’s bidding. They’re now scrambling to box her in, suggesting snidely that she confine herself to the rehabilitation cluster of their cherished ICAD. These were the very same men swaggering (reminiscent of Gaston in Beauty and the Beast) last week that Robredo should experience anti-drug operations from the front lines, implying that a woman like Robredo would cower in fear. Toxic masculinity aside, these people continue to make fools of themselves in public day in and day out, only revealing the rot in themselves more and more.

MALACANANG wasn’t prepared for her to say yes.

It was clear from the ensuing bedlam that Malacañang wasn’t prepared for Vice President Leni Robredo saying yes to taking on the vicious war on drugs. It started with President Duterte being his onion-skinned self, when he took offense at the Vice President’s observations about the failure of his much-vaunted war on drugs.

The metrics are fairly simple: according to Malacañang, drug addicts were estimated to be around 2 million when they took over in June 2016. Depending on who you listen to, that number has now ballooned to 4 million to 7 million despite this government’s bloody war on illegal drugs. It has left thousands dead in its wake, with the PNP grudgingly admitting that the unsolved number of murder cases are piling up. If thousands have surrendered, as the administration would have us believe, then why are their own figures going up?

After much taunting and needling from Presidential Stuntman Salvador Panelo and their allies, VP Robredo did the unthinkable: she accepted the position. You know how it is when watching a horror film in the cinema, silently willing the protagonist not to open the door with the monster behind it? That pretty much encapsulates my misgivings about the entire thing. We all know that it’s a trap laid out by the administration to sully the Vice President, setting her up to fail. But we (myself included) forget that the VP is no stranger to hardship. She snatched the trap from the jaws of malice and made clear to everyone why she took it on: if only to save a singular innocent from slaughter. To ignore all warning of impending danger for the opportunity to help others is indeed an admirable path that the Vice President has chosen.

From the get-go, Robredo managed to snatch the narrative away from the administration.

She knows that under no circumstances will the incumbent declare any success from her participation, which is why it was quite clever of her to put out her own measure of success. Robredo’s entry into the fray will certainly help shine a light in the darkest and murkiest parts of this war, and help bring a modicum of transparency in how this administration conducts its bloody business.

I harbor no optimism that this task will be a walk in Central Park, but the silver lining is that Robredo will now be on the inside, in a better position to call out every move these people make. It’s prime positioning that will enable her to present better alternative solutions to the problem at hand.

Right now I’m fairly sure that the bright boys along the Pasig are now lining up multiple landmines for her to step on, trying to subvert her efforts at every turn. Already the online propaganda machinery is in overdrive, working round the clock to smear her statements left and right. By now we know that the machinery works harder whenever its principals are vulnerable in any issue, moving to cover up the gaffe or blunder.

As the days go by, it will only be a matter of discovering what wrenches (I’m willing to bet good money that the wrenches will come with the monkeys) the administration will throw Robredo’s way. I’ve no doubt that she will ably dodge these wrenches and lob them back, much to the consternation of the monkeys that threw them. For years now, the public has been kept away from the inner workings of this policy that has orphaned so many Filipino families, and it is high time that we see the hands of those responsible for this farce, and not just the tragic result of their actions. I wish you well, Madame Vice President.

FOR as long as it has been around, one of the biggest challenges any government has to face is the aftermath of a natural disaster. In the wake of climate change, stronger typhoons have become the norm, making it more imperative for a government to make sure that it hits the ground running as lost time can translate to lives lost.

Most private citizens are continually frustrated at the pace of government response to natural calamities, and the earthquakes that struck several parts of Mindanao have given occasion for these questions to come up once again.

There are typically three phases as far as government is concerned when it is faced with an impending natural calamity. First, preparation. In cases where a strong typhoon has been monitored, government usually has four days lead time to ensure that preemptive measures have been undertaken in areas that will be affected by storms. This includes evacuating those in low-lying or flood prone areas, and ensuring that the local government unit concerned has made sufficient plans for relief and rescue (prepositioning relief goods, adequate personnel on duty, etc.)

Second is the actual rescue and relief stage. Some relief operations take less than a few days, and some, weeks on end. The challenge varies with the extent of the damage sustained by our communities. The first few days post-calamity is usually devoted to making sure that help reaches those who need it the most, including making sure that all areas are covered. This can mean covering several barangays in one day, or in the case of Super Typhoon Yolanda, several provinces.

Depending on the magnitude of the calamity, even getting relief supplies and distributing these to hard hit areas can pose a challenge for government workers. There is also the unfortunate but necessary task of identifying the dead; a task that is seemingly simple to the ordinary observer but is replete with legalities on the side of government. If you’ve ever wondered why the death toll as reported by media always seems to be quicker than the official figures released by government, it’s because the authorities have to go through a process of identification and verification before a death is pronounced to be in relation to the calamity. For example, should the remains of a person be found in a river in the aftermath of a typhoon, authorities must determine two things: the true identity of the body (a family member or someone familiar with the deceased must be on hand for this) and that the cause of death is related to the calamity. Should an autopsy find that the person sustained gunshot wounds, then the death cannot be attributed to the casualty count.

Third, and perhaps the most contentious stage is the rehabilitation. Administrations past and present continue to grapple with this phase, given the complex legal issues that are involved when it comes to implementing a successful rehabilitation of a damaged locality.

Building new homes may seem as simple as putting brick and mortar together, but there are many challenges to be hurdled before one can even break ground. Some questions that arise: where do we build? Are there readily available tracts of land owned by the local government for this purpose? Is the proposed location a safe one? Of course, the tedium of bureaucratic compliance should always be tempered with the urgency of the need of our people who have been victims of tragedy. The perils of government rehabilitation are so many that perhaps it is time for our legislators to put their heads together and come up with a legislative solution to make the process faster and more responsive to the needs of victims.

Lastly, a note on politicizing calamities–this is the worst thing anyone can do in an ongoing calamity, or in the wake of one. Throwing politics in the mix makes government bureaucrats all the more wary of moving swiftly in one direction, to the detriment of those who have been affected. Responding to politicized situations also take precious time and effort away from the focus of the situation, making it a lose-lose situation all around. While accountability is key, there is always a better time to start that conversation, preferably when urgent needs have been met, and not while people are crying out for help.

Our thoughts are with our brothers and sisters who have been affected by the series of earthquakes in Mindanao. If you are able, do find a reputable organization doing relief work in the quake-hit areas and donate what you can, be it time or resources.

THE phrase “bring home the bacon” usually denotes success, depicting a situation where a person or a group is able to bring back results from an undertaking. Sadly, in the case of Asian swine flu (ASF), the opposite appears to be happening. The Philippines is the world’s seventh biggest importer of pork; that statistic alone shows how big an impact ASF can have on our market if the spread goes unchecked.

According to our own agriculture officials, the Philippine hog industry is losing as much as one billion pesos a month due to ASF infections. The initial communications momentum gained by the government in addressing the ASF situation was good: there were continuous and constant reminders to the public that ASF is not harmful to humans, only hogs. Pork is safe to eat, they said, already anticipating the scare that the news will cause for consumers.

Unfortunately, that initial momentum was lost when the Department of Agriculture announced that traces of ASF were found in processed pork products, but withheld the name of the manufacturer for unknown reasons. Further testing is needed, they said, before considering a mandatory recall of these products. I’m not quite sure what the DA was trying to achieve with this strategy, but going public with supposedly contaminated products with initial or partial results did more harm than good. Doing so was counterintuitive and resulted in exacerbating the very perception that they were trying to fight: that pork is safe to eat and ASF does not infect humans. And here you see the result: there was backlash over the decision to keep the brand name secret, with citizens saying that the public ought to be informed so they could avoid buying these products. Other manufacturers also responded by saying that their products are ASF-free and safe for public consumption, trying to avert the negative impact that the DA announcement will have on their product sales.

Withholding the brand name from the public effectively tainted the products of all other meat processors, and the talk of recall without a definitive conclusion from testing runs contrary to the DA’s initial premise that ASF is not harmful to humans. Before this gets out of hand, the DA must manage the flow of information being shared with the public, and kick the bad habit of just sharing information because a microphone is thrust on their faces. While executing measures to avert the further spread of ASF is indeed a priority, the DA must give enough attention to the way their actions are being communicated to the public.

And here’s where every communications person’s perpetual frustration comes in: in a situation such as this involving public health and safety, the proper planning of the strategy for communications is as important as the operations strategy to actually quell the crisis.

The reality is most of our officials get caught up in trying to solve the problem without thinking about how bad communications can exacerbate the situation. Hopefully, Secretary Dar and his team can pay closer attention to their interface with the public through media to avoid adding more fuel to the already raging fire, at the expense of our hog raisers who are already feeling the pinch the entire ASF situation is causing. The belated action of forming an inter-agency task force involving other departments can still be useful, as the DA needs assistance from the Department of Interior and Local Government to talk to local government units and get their cooperation to stave the spread of the disease. Here’s to hoping that this tactic works soon, and fast.