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A bunch of nincompoops

EDITORIAL
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10/04/2010

It may well be Noynoy’s subalterns facing the Department of Justice (DoJ)’s probe body, but from the clueless and inept way they were responding to questions thrown at them by the panel members, that certainly was a display of not just their incompetence, but also of their president’s, who, from all indications, does not even possess the knack of appointing his officials on the strength of their qualifications and fitness for the job to which they have been tasked.

But then again, how can Noynoy Aquino, President of the republic, be expected to gauge his officials’ competence, qualifications and fitness for the job he hands them when he himself is as incompetent as they are?

What, for instance, made Noynoy halve the functions of the Department of Interior and Local Government between the DILG secretary and a DILG undersecretary, when there can only be one chief for that department, and responsible for both the local government units and the Philippine National Police? As DILG chief, he is tasked by law to be responsible for both the PNP and the LGUs, not his undersecretary, who moreover, has admitted before the probe panel that he is not even trained to handle hostage-taking situations.

Presumably, since he knows nothing about hostage-taking situations, he would have zero knowledge about terrorists taking hostages and even bomb threats from the terrorists. Yet Noynoy puts him in charge of the PNP. This being so, what qualifications and fitness for the job did Ric Puno have, not just as a DILG undersecretary but one moreover who is in charge of the PNP? His friendship with Noynoy?

Even worse, since it is the DILG chief, Jesse Robredo, who on paper appears as the chief, but has neither control nor power over PNP affairs, to whom then does Puno report, since it is much too clear that it is not Robredo, but directly to Noynoy? ISn’t that bypassing his DILG boss who is not his boss, as it turns out?

It really boggles the mind that Puno, in admitting that he is not trained in handling hostage-taking situations, and deferred to the heads of the local crisis management committee on how best to handle the hostage crisis that involved Hong Kong Chinese inside a tourist bus at the Rizal Park, relying completely on their say-so.

It was clear too that he did not want to be held responsible for the carnage as he said that standard operating procedure in the manual is that it is the ground commander and the hostage-negotiator who have full responsibility in handling the hostage-taker.

So what the heck was the undersecretary tasked to handle the PNP doing, just watch what was happening as the world was watching the live broadcast of the hostage taking and not even having an opinion on how it was being handled?

If such is the mind-set, what need is there then for higher officials to be given control over certain offices, since everything — from formation of the crisis committee, to the decisions made by the ground comander and hostage negotiators are solely their own?

Even more appalling is the fact that not one among the top civilian officials in Malacañang, the PNP and the members of the local crisis committee saw it as a “national” situation and merely regarded this as a “local” hostage-taking situation.

“The (local) treatment was... it happened in Manila. That’s one. And also the hostage-taker was a former police officer assigned in Manila. That was the consideration,” Puno told the probe body.

A tourist bus with foreigners taken as hostages by a sacked police officer is not taken by anyone in officialdom — including Noynoy — as a national problem?

No wonder Noynoy made himself unavailable and inaccesible to the calls from Hong Kong leader Donald Tsang. No wonder there was no action from Noynoy. No wonder there was no national government face all throughout the hostage rescue operations. For Noynoy and his boys in Malacañang, the hostage situation was just a “local” situation and therefore, a police matter.

Not a single moment during the hostage crisis did Puno and Malacañang ever think that the situation was national. It was treated as a local situation, Puno admitted.

We have become a people so badly served by a government of nincompoops.

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