When spokesmen speak

I cannot make heads or tails of presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda's apology for the monstrous traffic jam that crippled the North Luzon Expressway last Friday. In the first place, while there is no stopping Malacañang from involving itself in anything that catches its fancy, traffic matters are hardly issues that require presidential attention or comment, whether directly or by way of spokesmen.

So unless the apology was intended to win pogi points for the president by showing he supposedly cared and commiserated with the victims, at the expense of those truly responsible for the mess, there was really no reason at all why Malacañang had to apologize. It simply had nothing to do with the traffic jam. Nobody that I know of ever blamed the Palace for what happened.

Filipinos may be faulted for many things, but the one thing that cannot be said against them is not knowing if they are being had. In other words, they do not buy the apology Lacierda made on behalf of Noynoy Aquino. Filipinos are smart enough not to know that Noynoy had nothing to do with the mess. And because Noynoy had nothing to do with the traffic jam, no apology was required.

I do remember one time when a presidential wannabe did want to make traffic a presidential concern. Teofisto Guingona (may God rest his soul), the father of Senator TG Guingona, used to harbor presidential ambitions until unfavorable circumstances forced him to slide down to seek the vice presidency instead. But for a while, Tito Guingona did have moist eyes for Malacañang.

One time, in the course of promoting his presidential potential, we was interviewed on tv by Dong Puno. Acknowledging his presidential plans, he was asked to name three things he would prioritize if he became president. Guingona obliged by ticking off the three, in this exact order: Food production, traffic jams, and garbage collection.

Nothing wrong with food production. It was a major national concern, and thus potentially a presidential point of interest. But traffic jams? Garbage collection? These are very local matters that, while not necessarily off limits to presidential intervention, are things that no one normally expects a president, any president, to waste his time on.

Indeed, I strongly suspect that it was precisely because of these two answers that Guingona made before a nationwide television audience that his presidential aspirations failed to take off. I would not be surprised if people concluded that traffic jams and garbage made for too constricted a presidential view. And I would not be surprised if, because of this, Guingona was compelled to slide down to number two.

And that is why I find it suprising that in face of the many other pressing issues that require presidential attention, presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda had to apologize for the traffic jam. This is not intended to belittle the terrible ordeal that tens of thousands suffered as a result of the jam. But I just feel an apology by Malacañang was simply not required.

If Malacañang truly bled for the plight of those who got caught in the jam for hours, then the better, and more presidential, thing to do would have been to let heads roll instead of doing something as limp and as an unnecessary as an unrequired apology. For all we know, the apology Lacierda made on behalf of Noynoy was as we suspected it was -- an attempt to cash in.

On the other hand, what made the apology even more suspect is the fact that Lacierda did not stop with his apologizing. Instead, the loquacious Lacierda launched into a harangue about what should be done about the traffic situation in Metro Manila, apparently forgetting that he is a lawyer and not a traffic expert and that positions of power do not automatically translate into correctness.

The traffic situation in Metro Manila is the result of a series of blunders that those tasked with solving it simply failed to realize having committed and thus inadvertently allowed to pile up until it grew to the insurmountable height that it is today. And the first in this series of blunders is the utter failure of those concerned to unify and consolidate any and all efforts to address the problem.

The result is a patchwork of haphazard solutions that simply lacked cohesion and did not gel. A truck ban in Manila, for instance, caused a chain reaction that crippled traffic everywhere. Malacañang had nothing to do with the mess and therefore there was no need for it to apologize. That it did only proves it really does not know where it stands and that this government is truly an on-the-job-training government.

Or if it is not, then maybe there is really a need to revisit the role of spokesmen in relation to their principals. This is particularly true here in the Philippines where it is not uncommon to have spokesmen ad libbing for their principals without so much as a thought whether what they say truly reflects the position taken by their principals.

When spokesmen speak, the listening public must not be required to validate what the spokesmen are saying. There needs to exist a certain degree of unquestioning trust that all parties can repair to and be comfortable with. When Lacierda speaks, Filipinos must not be made to doubt whether Lacierda is speaking for Noynoy or just speaking his own mind. Alas, the exact opposite is what happened when he apologized.

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