Part of the solution

It’s too bad that our public officials can’t set aside politics even temporarily for a tragedy of immense magnitude like Super Typhoon Yolanda.

Not that you can blame President Aquino for skipping Tacloban City, Ground Zero of the monster howler, and skipping the date itself of the first anniversary, opting instead to fly to Guiuan, Eastern Samar last Friday.

P-Noy is no statesman, and as we have seen, he doesn’t take criticism well. The people of Tacloban, led by Imelda Marcos’ relative Alfred Romualdez, were not expected to roll out the red carpet for the President. P-Noy faced street protests – not the best image to be sent out to the world by all the foreign journalists who went to Eastern Visayas for the Yolanda anniversary. And horrors, Congresswoman Imeldific was invited to the event!

So P-Noy, who has enough problems on his plate, picked friendlier ground and went to Guiuan. There he was shown knocking on the wooden frame of a hut that looked flimsy enough to be toppled by a native pig fleeing the butcher.

Guiuan was where Yolanda made landfall, and where the US military parked its Ospreys and other aircraft for the massive relief effort. Much of the town was flattened by Yolanda. But pre-typhoon Guiuan had only about a sixth of the pre-typhoon population of Tacloban, so the city would have been the logical place to remember the tragedy. Tacloban would also have been a good place to thank the international community for sustained aid in the disaster area.

Romualdez is from a political clan and presumably understands that rudeness diminishes a person, especially when shown toward one he has invited as a special guest. P-Noy could have taken his chances.

The first death anniversary is special in our culture. It is the pagbababang luksa, when the mourning period ends. For typhoon victims who are hoping that their missing loved ones are still alive, the official mourning has not even started. The president of the republic is not just the commander-in-chief but also, when the occasion calls for it, the mourner-in-chief.

A lack of empathy, however, is something that P-Noy shares with his predecessor. GMA at least is aware of it; she once told us she believed she got it from her late mother. P-Noy couldn’t have inherited it from his parents. Cory Aquino would never have snapped at a businessman who was lamenting his losses from Yolanda, “But you’re still alive, aren’t you?”

Now the guessing game is whether P-Noy will again skip Tacloban when Pope Francis visits the city.

P-Noy can choose not to walk into what he thinks is the lion’s den. He can say he’s no hypocrite. But he must make sure that politics is not slowing down the rehabilitation effort.

He must live with the fact that if he really wants to build back better in Tacloban, his administration has to work closely with the local government, even if it happens to be led by a Romualdez and not an Aquino.

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The Tacloban government was crippled by Yolanda. City employees were among the fatalities. Many lost loved ones, homes and other assets.

No matter how unpalatable it might be to the administration, getting the local government back on its feet should be a priority in any disaster recovery effort. Not only because it’s more efficient than micromanaging the rebuild from imperial Manila, but also because the law on devolution has given local government units (LGUs) immense powers.

These can be misused, like all powers. In several areas, devolved powers have nurtured virtual dictatorships by political clans, with all the corruption and other ills that dynasties breed. Think of the Ampatuans before the 2009 massacre.

In many areas, devolution has also been bad for business and national competitiveness. Giving each layer of local government down to the barangay the power to impose and collect various types of fees has led to inefficiency and enormous red tape, which engender corruption.

I’m not the only one mystified by the country’s improvement in the global index on ease of doing business. People are wondering where those figures came from on the number of days required to complete various stages of business activities.

Large and established businesses probably have little trouble getting permits and other requirements processed. But for startups and small and medium enterprises, the process is a nightmare. Several expats have told me of complaints from even some of their big investors who have waited at least a year to get started here.

The complaints always include red tape at the local level, where it seems every layer of bureaucracy must be given the opportunity to augment personal income with “facilitation fees.”

Entrepreneurs are required to submit a mountain of documents with a slew of signatures, with each signature requiring a fee. Copies of office blueprints, costing a few thousand bucks a page even for a 40-square-meter space, must be submitted to various offices with corresponding fees. The documents only serve as vermin feed in the dingy corners where they are left to rot at city hall. Little wonder that Pinoys would rather toil as second-class citizens overseas than try their hand at entrepreneurship.

Those who find it easy to do business are usually the ones with the right connections. Businesses owned by the local dynasty and its cronies get VIP treatment in the LGU bureaucracy and are the ones that thrive. It’s not unusual for the ruling political clan to block investments that compete with their own.

Used correctly, on the other hand, devolution can speed up the delivery of basic services in a more efficient and inclusive way. Local officials are in the best position to create an environment conducive to job-generating investments and tourism.

Local executives have political leaders all the way down to the grassroots who can be mobilized for rebuilding. With leadership and managerial skills, local executives can speed up the recovery of their constituency from disaster.

The Aquino administration clearly has a low opinion of the leadership and managerial skills of Alfred Romualdez. But the mayor was elected by his constituents and can be given a chance to show his capabilities. Instead of being shunned like he has Ebola, he can be made part of the solution.