Regaining the people’s trust

The calm of Filipinos does not mean there is less anger or pain or awareness among the populace compared to Indonesians. Juan de la Cruz knows his elected leaders are cleaning his clock, but his patience and resilience are not infinite and should not be tested, lest the anger spill into the streets. Once unleashed, the revenge of the people could be brutal.

How can or should this government address a potential crisis? Crises are about loss of trust so avoiding them requires regaining this trust. Here are some tips from the crisis management playbook of companies when faced with a PR disaster, be it Abbotts’ recall of its tainted infant baby formula or Boeing’s 737 Max plane crashes.

One, show up and by this I do not mean the occasional, scripted press conferences that are more performative than they are productive. We currently have an invisible government. Our high officials should leave their comfort zones, get down in the weeds and interact with the populace. We need visible leadership, not press releases of full employment, strong growth and falling inflation that are meaningless to Filipinos. Most of our economic managers are good people but, understandably, are fearful of being publicly skewered; but as they say, if you cannot take the heat, then leave the kitchen and let somebody else do the cooking.

Two, acknowledge the problems frontally and take responsibility for the failures, be it in corruption, jobs, inflation, health care or education. Silence denotes fear, guilt, insensitivity, ignorance and/or incompetence. For example, admit that in the Philippines we have thousands of 10-year-olds who cannot read yet are being pushed up in grade because of the congestion in public classrooms. This explains why our 15-year-olds are second to last worldwide in comprehension, science and math. We are fostering a generation of illiterate children at a time when knowledge is the primary driver of progress.

Three, learn and fix the problems in a transparent, accountable, sustained and timely manner. Government can try to talk its way out of its deficiencies but that no longer works. Do not treat Filipinos like five-year-olds. So please, no more government by soothing messaging, just government by action.

The administration could start with quick-acting, easy wins while it addresses longer term concerns. Throwing a bunch of crooks in jail could be such a quick and easy fix.

Could the Indonesian unrest spill over to the Philippines?

Political crises do not happen until they do. Pain, suffering and hunger are universal conditions, they do not belong to any one public. The Indonesian protests erupted just a few months into a new government, which did not see them coming even if the signals were there.

Political sentiments are like fire. They can travel long distances without anyone noticing. The LA wildfires spread to areas supposedly immune. So with political sentiment. The seemingly isolated uprisings in Hungary in 1956 eventually led to the collapse of the USSR and the Berlin Wall. The protests in Tunisia triggered the Arab Spring.

All it takes is for the winds to suddenly shift for the Indonesian embers to leap to our shores. Our political and economic landscape is dry and combustible. The spark could be a Black Swan, a controversial initiative like Charter change, a massive budgetary heist, an environmental disaster or a heavy-handed treatment of dissenters. When that happens we may not be able to contain the conflagration that could ensue. – Antonio M. Claparols, president, Ecological Society of the Philippines