By ELLEN TORDESILLAS
THIS Mar Roxas-Alfred Romualdez fight is ugly.
As ugly as the Juan Ponce-Enrile-Miriam Defensor-Santiago battle.
At the hearing of the congressional oversight committee on the Philippine Risk Reduction and Management Act of 2010 last Monday, a tearful Romualdez related how, he claimed, Interior Secretary Mar Roxas tried to marginalize him in the relief and recovery efforts for the Yolanda-devastated city.
He said Roxas asked him for an ordinance allowing the national government to undertake relief and rescue operations in Tacloban to “legalize everything” or a letter stating that he could no longer function as mayor.
He said he almost gave in because of the enormity of the calamity but his lawyer advised him against it because the letter would be deemed as resignation.
He also said he could not understand why Malacañang would need to legalize their takeover of the operations in a disaster area when he as “the President is the President of the Philippines and he’s also the President of Tacloban City.”
He said he told Roxas, “I don’t see anywhere in the law that says you need an ordinance from me for you to come in and do what you’re doing.”
He said that’s when Roxas told him, “You have to understand. You are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino. If it’s not legalized, then OK you are in charge and we’ll help you, then that’s it … bahala na kayo sa buhay ’nyo.”
The 18-second video of Roxas telling Romualdez that politically devastating quote was posted in video by Jose Mari Gonzales It went viral that same day.
Roxas, who snubbed the congressional hearing, had to go on a counter-offensive the next day questing on TV programs crying “Foul” saying the video was spliced and taken out of context.
The full video of the Roxas-Romualdez meeting:
From the charges and counter-charges, this is our impression:
Romualdez is not a paragon of competence because if he were why would he be in his beachfront resort with his bodyguards in the wee hours of Nov. 8 when Yolanda was lashing at his city. Why was he not in City Hall directing the operations? The term “storm surge” as too technical for him and Tacloban folks to understand is not an excuse. PAGASA raised an alarming number four signal, the highest alert ever issued in this often typhoon-blasted archipelago. Why didn’t he heed the warning?
Be that as it may, Romualdez is an elected mayor of Tacloban in the same way that Aquino is the elected president of Philippine Republic. Whether he is perceived to be incompetent, the national government has to work with him.
Roxas also is in no position to feel superior over the whining Tacloban mayor.
He and Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin going to Tacloban to head the operations of what they knew to be a super typhoon without a satellite phone or alternate means of communication was like a soldier going to the battlefield without bullets or a reporter covering without a ballpen.
His interview with CNN’s Andrew Stevens did not inspire confidence in his leadership of a relief and rescue operation.
If that was not bad enough, his condescending remark about Romualdez suffering from “post-traumatic stress disorder siya kaya hindi ko alam kung saan nanggagaling mga criticisms niya” and advising him to “straighten out your memory banks,” was bad taste. Malicious.
In life’s thrilling, unpredictable narrative, we have witnessed incidents of light coming out after darkness, of nations torn by war finding peace or people sustained by hope in the midst of despair.
It is our hope that we would find something redeeming from this emotionally draining political episode.
