Department for common sense

Administration presidential bet Mar Roxas jokingly quipped that if elected, he will create a Department for Common Sense. If Mar truly loves this country, he will urge his principal sponsor, P-Noy, to establish that department right now.

Maybe, Mar isn’t all that hopeless after all. He articulated a long felt need. And by saying it out loud under the guise of a joke, he actually made an observation that distances himself from how this administration is being run.

Maybe, just maybe, Mar was as hopelessly indecisive and in a word, useless, over the last five years out of deference to P-Noy. He can’t rise above his inept boss.

The last few days showed how this administration had been seriously lacking in common sense. If they had an iota of common sense, they could have solved that tanim bala scam at NAIA quickly.

Roy Golez outlined a very simple response in his Facebook post that soon became viral. Roy suggested the single bullet being “found” should just be confiscated like the bottles of water, lighters and nail clippers.

Those who are legalistic point out that could not be done without amending the law. But the response to that is simple too: The Executive department has enough discretion on how to implement the law based on the intent of the law.

Surely, the framers of the law did not intend to imprison grandmothers and OFWs and a young contestant to an international competition because a single bullet was supposedly found in their bags.

Rep. Leni Robredo has filed a bill that will fix the legal basis of the tanim bala scam. Congress must pass that single amendment quickly so we can conclude this nasty episode. It has given the country an international black eye and caused our citizens fear and insecurity as well as rage.

In the meantime, let us take away the economic incentive for the scam by simply confiscating those bullets. The Justice department can also dismiss all those cases filed against the grandmothers and a Bible preacher.

Common sense will tell us a single bullet does not make a potential terrorist, more so in the absence of a gun. There is no reasonable motive for grandmothers to smuggle a single bullet. But there is plenty of incentive for the security officers to plant those bullets for extortion.

There is also a need to review the current system of having multiple agencies in charge of airport security. Aside from the blue guards which the airport management must have hired, there is the Office of Transportation Security under DOTC Sec Jun Abaya and there is the PNP.

It was not surprising to see everyone washing their hands and suggesting they are not responsible. There should be a single point of responsibility for airport security and the PNP seems to be the logical agency for that.

Even then, everyone currently assigned to the airport by the OTS and PNP should be taken out and a new crew assigned to give the public confidence the crooks are no longer there. While not all of those to be relieved are guilty, it is a necessary step in the light of the public uproar.

Indeed, those who are innocent must know who are guilty. Let them spill the beans and tell the NBI what they know or suffer the consequence of being lumped with the crooks. Denying the scam exists is out of the question because it obviously does. That’s common sense too.

It was a grave mistake for my friend Sonny Coloma to minimize the importance of the scam. Even if there was just one case of tanim bala, that would have been one incident too many. Sonny’s job is to reassure the public that Malacanang is deeply concerned about their safety.

The denials by the airport general manager, the head of OTS and by the spokeswoman of the PNP didn’t serve any useful purpose. The denials only inflamed an already enraged public, not a good thing to do in an election season unless P-Noy is a secret Binay supporter.

Common sense. Why is it ever called common when it is so uncommon in public life these days? This administration could have avoided so many pitfalls during the last five years, if only it had a decent supply of common sense. At critical junctures like the Luneta bus carnage, Yolanda and Mamasapano and its wake, common sense seemed the scarcest commodity around.

Even Mar Roxas seems to lack it. He said the tanim bala is part of a demolition job against government. If Mar is right, it is still bad for government because they are in control and seem to be allowing it.

It is irresponsible to challenge the evidence and blame media or unseen political enemies. Besides, the Liberals are very efficient in doing demolition jobs on themselves through stupidity.

Mar’s statement calling on those apprehended to take responsibility shows he doesn’t get it. Some of those are victims. Buti pa si Leni, his running mate, she got it and filed the appropriate bill.

Former Tourism Usec Wally Reyes summed up the situation: “Doesn’t matter if there is a tanim bala syndicate or not; doesn’t matter if it is only one incident or many; doesn’t matter if it is a demolition job or not... what matters is this scam ruins the country’s image; what matters is this scam scares travelers, be they tourists or our own OFWs; what matters is this scam has been allowed to grow without being stopped; what matters is the international media are now monitoring this scam and more negative news internationally are forthcoming...”

I recall coming across a book entitled The Death of Common Sense many years ago. I googled it to recall its key points and indeed, all are very relevant today.

Philip K. Howard the book’s author, provides examples of how bureaucratic rigidity, costly and ineffective regulation, and overly complex procedural rules have superseded good judgment and common sense.

“We should stop looking to law to provide the final answer,” he says. “Life is too complex. Our public goals are too complex... Law can’t think, and so law must be entrusted to humans and they must take responsibility for their interpretation of it.”

He sounds like he is talking about our wordy Constitution that provides almost no leeway to adjust for changes in society through time… or how the Firearms Law is being implemented that enabled crooks to come up with this tanim bala scam.

So Howard complains that before acting or making a decision, we often abandon our best instincts. We pause, we worry, we equivocate…

If DOTC and airport officials used common sense, this scam wouldn’t have thrived for as long as it had.

But P-Noy has thrown out common sense too by blindly backing up his friends who have embarrassed him time and again. It makes us feel June 30, 2016 is too long a time to wait because almost any of the presidential contenders could be better than him… even Mar.

By all means, let us have a Department of Common Sense, but it can only be effectively headed by the President himself. That means he must have common sense.

Etihad event

I asked Dino Tanjuatco, who heads Clark Airport, what happened to that Etihad flight last week that was diverted to Clark. Its 400 passengers and crew were kept inside the plane for 10 hours. It almost seems someone is liable for illegal detention… 10 hours?

True, the terminal capacity of Clark is limited and there are too many people on that flight. And Clark was handling its regular two flights from South Korea that evening at about the same time.

The Etihad passengers could have been released earlier, but we apparently have a rule that forbids passengers in diverted flights from getting out of the aircraft. Again, common sense thrown out the window by a stupid rule that made 400 people suffer claustrophobia for 10 hours.

By the time NAIA was ready to take in the Etihad flight, the flight crew had already served the maximum number of hours allowed.

A new crew had to come from Manila and was stuck in traffic on their way to Clark. The buses Etihad hired to bring the passengers to Manila as an alternative measure also got stuck in Manila traffic. So it was a mess.

I have no doubt that if Mr. Tanjuatco was given the discretion to allow the Etihad passengers to be processed by CIQ in Clark after a reasonable time of being stuck inside the parked plane, things would have been different.

Boo Chanco’s e-mail address is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @boochanco