EDITORIAL - Tragedies beget more tragedies

The tragedy of tragedies is that they beget even more tragedies. This was very evident last year in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina's devastation of several southern US states when the woefully unprepared emergency services exacerbated the problem instead of mitigating it.

Here in the Philippines, the ongoing tragedy of widespread poverty begot the tragedy that was the Wowowee stampede, in which more than 70 people were killed in the mad dash for cash and other prizes.

And yet the tragedy did not end there. The personal comments of the lead investigator in the case, while decidedly unfortunate and uncalled for, were seized upon by the show organizers to cushion, if not deflect, the blame that is in fact nobody else's but theirs.

And because the organizers have found the momentum, they appear to be shedding everything now except the obligation to pay cash remuneration, which is the easiest burden to bear, being derived only from the pocket and not snatched from the core of conscience.

This, in turn, begot yet one more tragedy, that of President Arroyo stepping into the picture, as the organizers admittedly are correct in pointing out, to preempt whatever may arise from the expanded investigation.

President Arroyo, in a radio interview, criticized the organizers for shifting the blame of the tragedy to the victims themselves. She is correct of course in her observation, but wrong in saying it publicly.

If the president really wanted to help in some way, she could have limited herself to simply directing the emergency relief operations and organized better social services for the victims.

But she chose to take the high-impact but low-priority course of action, betraying her lack of sincerity. It is clear that she merely wanted to make the news everyone wanted and waited for, which is to put the feet of the high-flying organizers squarely on the ground of reality.

She may even have a more sinister agenda, which is to get back at the organizers who have been critical of her administration. And that is the worst tragedy of all, the transformation of an unfortunate incident into what it should never have been, a political tool.