Yolanda will not define Noynoy presidency

Mar Roxas says the presidency of Noynoy Aquino will not be defined by Yolanda. Somehow I sense that somewhere in that statement is an admission that government fell short in dealing with the supertyphoon. But I agree. Yolanda will eventually be just one of those things. People will move on.

Besides, it is just 2013, even if nearing toward its end. That means Noynoy is just ending the first half of his presidency. He has three more years of defining left. There is ample time for making up. But time is not a constant commodity. No matter how ample, time will, in the end, run out.

Other than the time factor, I agree that Yolanda will not define the Noynoy presidency because I doubt if other presidents could have done any better. Yolanda was one of a kind. It was an unprecedented phenomenon. If other presidents could have done better, I doubt if it will be better in a truly significant way.

To me, no president could have anticipated, much less understood, the true nature of Yolanda. That being so, no president could have prepared the country in a way it should have prepared. No model simply existed to define what the proper preparation and response would be.

To be sure, Noynoy and his government took too long and gave too little by way of initial response. So maybe by that measure must the criticism against Noynoy be heaped. But if there is an indication that no one could have done better, and thus give Noynoy some breathing spell, it is in the way the world responded.

In case you have not noticed, this is the first time that the world has responded to a tragedy in such a massive way. Even states that are not known to be friendly with one another found themselves rubbing elbows in the devastated areas to bring relief.

At the last count, some 30 countries participated in the massive effort. Another thing you may have missed is that the global effort was spontaneous. For reasons that I do not know, the Philippines never cried out for help. Maybe it never had the chance to because right from day one, help started arriving.

So why was the response so quick and so massive. I really do not know the answer. But I can guess, and my guess is that Yolanda was so unprecendented that the entire world was jolted into action like it had never been jolted before.

So devastating had been the scenes that started filtering through CNN that the world could not help but cry as if it is they who had been hit. The circumstances of Yolanda had been so stark and harrowing the response could not be anything but reflexive and quick and massive and meaningful.

It was as if everyone knew what was needed and thus brought in the right relief. Nothing was wasted. Only a world that truly understood what just happened can be so precise and thorough. If not for the glaring failures of the Philippine government itself, the response would have been so perfect.

In the end, and despite the shortcomings on the local side, it would be safe to say that things could really have been far worse. That the nation escaped that ignominious fate allows Noynoy the breathing space he desperately needs, even if undeserved.

And so, just as Mar said, Noynoy will survive Yolanda. It will not be Yolanda that will define the presidency of Noynoy but Noynoy himself. Sadly, however, with his term now at the halfway mark, Noynoy has not truly begun to start defining his presidency.

Maybe this is because Noynoy himself is confused about what his presidency is all about. To refresh his memory, his presidency is about the elimination of poverty by way of the eradication of corruption. If I remember right, the slogan was "walang mahirap kung walang kurap."

That is the goal. And the way to get there is through the straight and narrow path, or "daang matuwid." Halfway through his term we are nowhere near that goal. It is not even in sight. With the goal not in sight, there will be nothing to define his presidency with except by its failure to reach its goal.