The senators ‘ quit call on Secretary Francisco Duque came late like a delayed call by a referee in a basketball game. It may not have cost the penalized team the game but the far heavier cost was in terms of diminished morale , enthusiasm and, ultimately, loss of trust.
The truth is, the fissures the COVID -19 tectonic was having on Duque were already evident early in the game; it’s hard to miss them they were like cracks on a concrete road.
For instance, in a Senate hearing Duque was asked if the manifesto of passengers in a flight from China was already in government’s hand. He said the concern airline did not make it available , citing the issue on privacy.
Then came the rebuff from the airline official: the manifesto was already given to his department days earlier. Duque sheepishly replied he would check it with his people. Duh!
In the same hearing, Duque was asked about a South Korean who got in contact with a COVID-19 positive passenger. He said his understanding was the guy was somewhere in Angeles City. Where in Angeles City? He’ll check because they’re having a hard time tracing people.
Give it to the Philippine National Police, it’s a walk in the park, an exasparated Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa pushed with frustration in his eyes.
At that point, Duque already had two strikes, like Casey at the bat, who eventually struck out, and there was no joy in Mudville after that.
The last straw or strike that broke the senators’ back, apparently, was when mediaman Arnold Clavio tweeted about the pile up of COVID -19 cadavers in a hospital, which was promptly labeled by Duque as “fake news”. Clavior outed his source and showed on GMA a video of the cadavers. Exhibit A, your honor. Media trumping top-level mendacity.
The senators’ charges against Duque run the gamut of utter ineptness: failure of leadership, negligence, lack of foresight, and inefficiency. In other words. someone was goofing on the job. Right on the money. There was a time when a certain lawyer sued Senator Coco “Nut” Pimentel for breaking his protocol as COVID 19 positive. Compared to Duque’s sins, Pimentel’s is peanuts.
Dugue eventually issued a meek-as-lamb mea culpa. Damage control, spinmeisters would say. He admitted but did not confess. In law and theology, the two are different. The former is looking at a plea bargain, the other wants mercy.
His patron ,who is far from being a saint but is a lawyer, granted both. He stays because he was doing a good job. It was an open-and-shut decision, The Senate resolution was transcendent. As they say in Tagalog,hampas sa kalabaw, sa kabayo and latay. The resolution might as well have been trained unwittingly at him. A Cabinet member is supposed to be an alter ego.
One oft-quoted principle in management is Murphy’s Law which says that if something can go wrong, it will. Perhaps this is no more true in a crisis as invicible and invincible as the corona virus. Or maybe to his credit, Duque knows it by heart, but there are other people to consider. Most things do not happen in vacuum. An elephant may be in the room.
To get the bigger picture, consider this fact: when the Wuhan breakout was raging and roiling China , there were calls from various sectors that Duque should already ask for the cancellation of flights from Duterte’s default country.
Duque vaccillated, arguing against it on the basis of the China card. It will have political and diplomatic consequences, he said, or words to that effect.
Lest we forget, Duque also admitted to his lack of experience in a pandemic as devastating as the one that has engulfed the world.
Given his admissions en toto, the most patriotic thing for Duque to have done — and still can do, by the way — is give way to someone who can do a better, if not a perfect, job. The country can not roll the dice on him, notwithstanding his sincerity and humility. This job calls for competence, integrity and trust, not a contrite spirit and submissive attitude. Leadership calls for firmness and an uncompromising stand when the opportunity calls for it. It’s sometimes called professionalism. I remember an expert define a professional as one who knows when it’s time to go.
He must take his cue from his colleague in the Cabinet, Secretary Ernesto Pernia, who quit over disagreements with other Cabinet members on important policy, not personal issues. He could hear his dissonant voice , who knows maybe of the others, like an E flat in the Cabinet choir. He did the right thing: get out of the kitchen.
True patriotism, according to Robert Reich, former labor secretary of US President Bill Clinton, isn’t cheap. So is decency.
It is tempting, although it may not be fair, to compare Duque’s performance with the health ministers of neighboring countries like Taiwan or Vietnam, for instance, where COVID 19 ins’t as bad as it’s here. A Time magazine article by Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-Wen noted a little less than 400 cases, with no reported death in the island with no WHO advisor or UN protection, either from the virus or the Mainland.
As you read her piece, one thing was very clear and instructive on how to push back the monster virus: be proactive. They treat the crisis as a health problem, not a peace and order one. Their strategy is done three ways: testing, tracing and treatment. No lockdown, total or enhanced. Meantime, we have been ranked already at the bottom of the totem pole of 20 most unsafe countries in the world on account of COVID 19.
Many of our frontliners, doctors and nurses,would have been probably saved if there was a better handling of the pandemic in this country.
Interestingly, in the Philippines, the knee-jerk an d feckless strategy starts with three Ts : threaten, threaten and threaten pa more.
Duque should really look at the bigger picture, not himself in the mirror and, like the vain Queen in Snowhite, asks who’s the fairest of them all. Duque’s mirror is Duterte. Ted Turner, the founder of Cable News Network, has a neat slogan on his table in his office. Lead, follow or step out of the way.
Not really a bad advice, especially when people’s lives and future are on the line.
