Duterte’s ‘war on feces’

Herbie Gomez .

WHERE is the science in all the noise on Boracay?

The Boracay problem has everything to do with the environment and so, the solution should come from people who have a clear understanding of environmental science.

If environmental scientists say that closing the island down for six months and rehabilitating it during the period is doable, by all means do it. But if it is just the guesswork of a former Army general who once planted a tree, the Tulfo brothers’ travel agent sister, and another retired general, or worse, another spur-of-the-moment decision of a president who may have convinced himself that he can suspend the laws of science, I really doubt if the problem is going to be fixed in six months.

I worry that the President is trying to solve the Boracay problem without the aid of scientific knowledge and expertise. And I doubt if he has been receiving sound scientific advice on the matter.

What could be worse is if the recommendations of the two retired generals and the travel agent are based on the solution he proposed the moment the feces of Boracay hit the fan. I have taken note of the fact, without fear of contradiction, that his warning to temporarily shut down the island was made even before he sent members of his cabinet to assess the situation. In other words, the decision was “premeditated,” so to speak, because he announced what he intended to do long before the supposed recommendations of former generals Roy Cimatu and Eduardo Año, and travel agent Wanda Teo, the secretaries of the environment, interior, and tourism departments. In that case, the secretaries’ “recommendations” were merely ministerial and intended to project an appearance of validity to what the President was long bent on doing.

It is not that I am against the six-month shutdown provided that the government approach in solving this gargantuan problem is standing on solid scientific grounds. If that is scientifically sound, by all means, close it down. If experts on environmental science say the shutdown and rehabilitation should take longer than six months, say, until 2022, then so be it. But, for crissakes, shut it down based on sound scientific advice and not because one septuagenarian feels that it’s a solution or worse, that it would make him look strong-willed.

My apprehension is that the Duterte solution on Boracay, this “Oplan Ebak,” is based on impulse and his mood swings which, records show, this President is fond of doing.

(Just look at the mess in Marawi. He launched the “war” to crush a terrorist group that was supposedly about to establish a caliphate in the predominantly Muslim city. In the process, he obliterated an entire city and created hundreds of thousands of family problems, and mental and emotional disorders so huge that rebuilding would probably take more than one generation. Somewhere in the outskirts of Marawi is an innocent family that literally has nothing because the Duterte solution reduced everything they had built for years into nothingness. Nearly a year later, the traumatized and financially ruined family has been left to fend for themselves like wounded street dogs because the period of food-aid bombardment is over. Government propaganda aside, chaos and hopelessness are the reality on the ground.)

His curriculum vitae, which shows he passed the bar exams and was a former prosecutor before he became a professional politician, is meaningless when it comes to environmental science. Yet, as President, he could have opted to solicit the advice of experts which this country is not lacking of. There are many in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, including the Environment Management Bureau, and universities across the country, not to mention, non-government environmental watchdogs. But where are their recommendations? Instead, we are told that the “recommendations” came from two ex-generals and a travel agent.

I am interested to know about the details of the “recommendation” of one of the generals who happens to head the environment department if there is even such a document. But until then, we will never know if Malacanang used science in its decision-making on Boracay. If not, then the island is like a man, ailing or dying, receiving treatment from an auto mechanic.

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What’s with President Duterte’s seeming obsession with six months? In 2016, he vowed to resign if he failed to fulfil his promise of eradicating corruption in the government in six months from the day he assumed as President.

He also promised to rid the country of the drug menace in six months, only to ask for an extension of six more months. By now, the whole world knows he reneged on that promise and failed to fulfil his self-imposed obligation after three six-month periods.

With the ongoing and definitely-more-than-six-month “war on drugs” (which is actually a “war” on mostly street peddlers with dirty fingernails but never the filthy rich sources of illegal drugs) comes this six-month “war on feces,” this “Oplan Ebak,” in Boracay.

“Six months” is beginning to sound like a political marketing rhetoric.

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Didn’t the President declare communist rebels “terrorists” in Proclamation 374? Yet last week, he ordered government peace negotiators to work for the resumption of peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front.

Wait — didn’t he make it the government’s position that the NDF is a “terrorist organization”? So now, we have here probably the only government in the civilized world that negotiates with groups it sees to be “terrorists”?

Make up your mind, Mr. President. It’s either the communist rebels are terrorists or not.

That’s what happens when the mouth operates faster than the brain, and when presidential proclamations are made based impulse, and on presidential mood rather than data and reason. Pastilan.