Ping as ‘rehab czar’ needs job definition

CHALLENGE: Former senator Panfilo “Ping” Lacson as post-Yolanda rehabilitation czar let loose on the fast track? Good luck to him!

Actually Lacson does not need a job. What he needs is a high-profile platform from which to project himself while serving the public — which is why we assume that he has accepted the post only under certain conditions.

One important condition is for him to have a free hand, reporting only to President Noynoy Aquino. But this carte blanche will not work like magic in the real bureaucracy tied up in politics, red tape and clashing ambitions.

Quick and massive reconstruction of communities, livelihood and infrastructure is not exactly the expertise of the supercop-turned-politician. Lifting back to their feet 6.6 million individuals scattered in 171 devastated towns in 14 provinces is, as he himself said, a daunting challenge.

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CRISSCROSS LINES: Planning alone is one formidable task involving experts from various agencies not directly under his command. He cannot even be sure all of them will be enthusiastic to see him shine.

Implementation follows -- under the constraints of time, funding and the human element. Lacson must have the acumen (we grant he has it) to organize and manage a team whose members straddle diverse disciplines and line agencies.

There are certain aspects of rehab, such as the building of infrastructure, assigned by law to the Department of Public Works and Highways. How will he sort out the crisscrossing lines?

Another test is the deployment of uniformed personnel who, also by law, report to the military or the police under other departments. Another one: How will he relate with the National Economic and Development Authority and local government units?

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WARRANTY SEAL: Since the still to be created rehab agency is not in the national budget, it cannot directly access public funds. This may have to be done in a roundabout way through the office of his direct boss the President.

Is the new unit a mere adjunct of the Executive office? Will the czar be just a glorified errand boy of the President? Will Lacson’s name be stamped on rehab projects as a sort of seal of Good Housekeeping?

With the super cop’s no-nonsense reputation having preceded him, is he being deployed to make government crooks toe the tuwid na daan (straight path) while assuring taxpayers and fund donors that every peso spent for rehab will be accounted for?

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CROOKS’ NEMESIS: Will Lacson be a deodorizer or deterrent? We can imagine that while the Commission on Audit does its usual post-performance check, he will be monitoring the money trail even before the first peso is spent.

That police work is right down Lacson’s alley. Why then does the President not go straight to the point and appoint him an anti-corruption czar as originally suggested?

No puede. Sources said some characters close to the President do not relish the idea of Lacson sniffing around them.

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TANTALIZING REWARD: The point that these questions raise is that Lacson’s office and its functions must be clearly defined for the sake of everybody, including other department heads who are naturally jealous of their turf.

But while the obstacles to the rehab czar’s succeeding on the job are varied and numerous, the rewards in case of reasonable success are tantalizing.

One possible reward is no less than a good shot at the presidency of a nation looking for a real leader. The people are tired, and worried, of seeing an administration improvising from one crisis to another.

One wonders how DILG Secretary Mar Roxas and other presidential wannabes in the administration will take the possibility of Lacson eclipsing them by doing good in his high-profile assignment.

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SILENT ‘T’: This may sound trivial, but I wince whenever I hear disaster risk mitigation officials as well as radio-TV hosts and reporters, say “tsunami” with a hard “t” as in “choonamee”.

A Japanese compound word meaning “harbor (tsu) wave (nami)”, tsunami is pronounced with a silent “t” as in “sunami”.

I learned this phonetic detail years ago from my daughter Dr. Leyo Bautista of Phivolcs. She studied for five years in Japan to earn her masters and doctorate (of science) at Kyoto University.

Why “harbor wave”? Japanese fishermen sometimes sail out to fish and encounter no unusual waves but, upon their return, find their harbor and village devastated by a huge wave during their absence.

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ORIGIN: Tsunami was first coined in the Edo period (1603-1868), according to Wikipedia. Before the West adopted it much later, it had been widely used in Japanese literature.

National Geographic said that the term was first used in the English language in a report in its September 1896 issue about a great wave triggered by an earthquake resulting in the death of 26,975 on Hondo, the main island of Japan.

Another account said that in April 1946 a huge quake hit the Aleutians, triggering a wave that struck Hawaii. Local newspaper used the word tsunami that Japanese-Americans there were using and the word spread rapidly.

In 1968, a proposal by the American oceanographer Van Dorn to make it an official academic term was accepted.

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LOCAL TERM: The 26,975 tsunami casualties on Hondo may dwarf our 7,000+ Yolanda toll, but if we only had a term for the “storm surge” whipped up by the strongest typhoon ever to hit land, we could have tried having the world adopt our Pilipino term.

Some sectors said Yolanda victims would have sensed the danger if only forecasters used the more familiar “tsunami”. But then, technically a tsunami is triggered by an earthquake or volcanic activity, which Yolanda was not.

Some people have mentioned “daluyong” as a possible term for storm surge. If you have another term, please email it to us.

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