Clowns

We have begun to start picking up the pieces as we move to a general community quarantine for the second time. The ridiculousness of our COVID-19 alphabet soup is not lost on the people. Policies that were introduced, debated, implemented, and withdrawn by the Inter-Agency Task Force for the Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases mere days or weeks after they had demanded compliance serve as evidence of a complete and utter lack of political will and backbone. Then we have reports of members of the Philippine National Police flouting lockdown restrictions, when they are supposed to oversee the enforcement of quarantine rules. Not to mention the circus concerning widespread corruption in PhilHealth that could rival anything Cirque du Soleil has put on any Vegas stage.

As much as these costly “jokes” played by government officials at the expense of the people are universally panned as undeserving of any place in our current desperate situation, what is most tragic about these distractions is that after more than six months of slipshod leadership, the country is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, still trying to grapple with the pandemic.

The beauty of a representative democracy is to ensure that everybody’s needs and welfare are considered in the formulation of national policy. The people delegate the power to govern to presumably wise and capable men and women, who in turn craft and implement just laws and programs to spearhead a united response in times of crises. Public officials cannot shift the burden of governance to the people or the private sector and say, “We must all do our part,” when they themselves have not done their job in the first place. Or if they are the ones actively breaking the laws they swore to uphold. Or if they have their grubby hands in the till.

This is a perversion of the democracy enshrined in our Constitution, and must therefore be seen for what it is: incompetence of the highest order. And in any organization, when you are found incapable, incompetent, and inefficient, you are fired. There’s nothing wrong with demanding the same level of excellence from our elected officials. They are not there to look pretty or to get away with doing as little as possible. They are there to serve.

People are slowly waking up to the reality that in allowing inferior people to hold the reins of power, our leaders are sorely ill-equipped to handle anything bigger than their petty internal squabbles. That when something as big as a pandemic happens, we cannot rely on the people we’ve chosen to lead us. They, along with everyone else, end up running around like headless chickens when confronted with something bigger than themselves. And it’s not as if the signs aren’t there for all to see: When the President himself, the leader of over 100 million Filipinos, insists on retaining the title of “Mayor” in addition to his actual title, you know you’re going to get folksy, small-town, tragically small-minded solutions.

This frustrating parochial mindset has trickled down to the sycophants who surround him and prop up his power base. It is the height of tragedy that otherwise brilliant and honest men and women working in government are now complicit in what could be the biggest embarrassment to ever happen in the history of our public health sector — where a country of modest but sufficient means managed to fall off the stupid tree and hit every branch on the way down.

Our government officials have been unmasked as the clowns they are, and day after agonizing day, we see them running around in their mismatched socks, bright clothes, and painted faces, as we try our best to scrape together what remains of our dignity as a nation under the watchful eyes of the global community.

This is comedy gold, and would be so entertaining to watch, except we’re the ones who end up with pie on our faces.

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Ryan Robert Flores is a product development manager at a design firm in Manila that serves clients both here and abroad.