Final humility

by Teddy Locsin, Jr. 

The President should have gone to TAC-low-ban first thing in the morning after the storm. The airport was open. There was room for a chopper to land.

And he should have said nothing but this—

“This is so much worse than I thought or than anyone expected.
We knew it was the perfect storm.

We did not know it could do such damage.
You must know the situation will get worse
before it gets better.

It will take time to get adequate rescue and relief over here.
Meanwhile, the very means by which I came,
is being taken as I speak, 

By military and PNP units from Manila to here
To do the jobs of their stricken counterparts
Posted there before the storm. 

Meanwhile I urge you to take every precaution
and adopt any means necessary
To protect your lives and properties
until we have the situation under control.
My heart, our hearts, go out to you.
I know you cannot hear me.

Power is out and telecommunications are down;
But let the word go forth from this time and place.
We shall do all we can as fast as we can
to follow up words of sympathy with concrete action.

We shall spare no effort and expense
and treat everyone with the same regard and care.
I am meeting with your mayor to check on his family.
Politics left with the storm;
country and people begin right here;
God bless you all.”

Instead government tried to downplay the threat to security; the extent of the need and to minimize the devastation.

'Ninety-five percent destroyed? What’s that prison standing over there?' Thereby giving the first suspects in the looting the best alibi: the word of the President.

The prisoners did better they donated their meals to their countrymen who would have been safer in jail.

Government should not have quibbled over the number of dead rather than meet the needs of the living.

When Pinatubo erupted and blanketed Luzon with ash, the President at the time declared that the eruption dropped the temperature of the planet by 2 degrees; the calamity was planetary in scale.

She joined the public in watching video footage, a lot of it CNN, not to mention ABC, NBC and CBS, showing the extent of the damage, reckoning the scale of relief required, and estimating the time to take it there.

Because of this humility in the face of nature, whatever help the government gave was met with approbation. The same when an earthquake tore up the same places not long after.

Humility is the first virtue of government. Humility lets you see, not what you want to see, what but what is really out there. It is better say you can do less than you can, so it is appreciated when you do more.


The seeming extra effort in extraordinary circumstances will give renewed heart to those who lost it in the storm. 

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/blogs/opinions/11/20/13/final-humility