EDITORIAL - No credit where credit was most due

In its zeal to congratulate itself for its handling of all post-Yolanda efforts, the government only mentioned in passing one thing so crucial that without it, all its claims of success would fall flat on its face -- the massive foreign response to the disaster. While the Philippine government got mired just trying to comprehend what the hell happened, more than 30 countries already had feet on the ground bringing food, medicine and shelter.

There is no problem with President Aquino bragging about his accomplishments in last Monday's State of the Nation Address. That is precisely what a SONA is for -- a report to the nation. And when you make such a report, surely you stress on the positive and often omit the negative. But when you do make omissions, or make very passive references, do not lump them with the negatives just because they happen to be the accomplishments of others and not your own.

In his glowing assessment of government's post-Yolanda efforts, Aquino drew parallels with the experience of Haiti which, according to him, took two years to get back on its feet. By contrast, he said, the Philippines is now on the reconstruction phase just eight months since the most powerful storm on earth wiped out large areas of the Visayas.

Even the truth about that claim already strains credulity to its very limits. Reconstruction is evident, indeed, but very limited and very patchy, hardly the kind of progress anyone would crow about in something as big and bold as a SONA. Just because reconstruction has started in a few areas does not mean the whole thing has already entered that phase. The truth is, large areas remain nailed to the relief stage.

But the worst deception made on the topic, whether by design or plain oversight, is the gross omission or shortchange, the glaring slight mention it might as well not have been made of the participation of thousands of volunteers from more than 30 countries, many of whom to this very day have remained in the devastated areas, particularly in Tacloban and other areas in Leyte to sustain life where the Philippine government is remarkably missed.

We challenge, if not President Aquino, then his speech writers who crafted his SONA to contradict this fact -- that even to this day, there are more foreign volunteers in Tacloban providing continuous relief and rehabilitation than Philippine government workers. We issue this challenge not to pick a fight with anyone but to try and attempt to put things in proper perspective, so that if credit is our only way of giving thanks, then let that credit be given where it is due.

Even granting, for the reasons that the president has given, that we are indeed now on the reconstruction phase in just eight months, isn't it only fair to ask if we would even have reached this phase in so short a time had not the foreign volunteers from more than 30 countries come in droves to lay the foundation for our very own government to claim credit for a job the wellness of whose doing it had so little to contribute in the most crucial of stages?

The president was said to have spent 91 minutes reading his SONA and received 85 rounds of applause. It would have been no skin off anyone's butt if he added just a minute or two more to read the names of each of the more than 30 countries who came to our aid instead of just a passing generic mention of them as the international community. Surely the additional applause for each country's name would have been more deserved than all the other rounds of highly partisan clapping.