Recycled issues and the strange durian malady

AS I was saying in a previous post, I was still able to attend the workshop I was supposed to participate in. Here Department of Agrarian Reform provincial officials were supposed to discuss the problems and concerns as they went about their task of identifying coconut-growing areas that were supposed to be covered by law, and suggest some ways to overcome them.  But somehow, the instructions were not strictly followed and the concerned officials reported concerns that had nothing to do with the issue at hand.  Worse, many of those reported were ‘recycled’.  Meaning, these had been reported and discussed in many workshops before.

The group reporters came ready with their presentations, but after the third reporter, the DAR undersecretary pointed out the kinks in their reports and spared no harsh words as he castigated them like naughty schoolboys.  I don’t think he was playing for the cameras or the media because there was none around, although they could have gotten good stories from those present.  I also didn’t have my friends’ numbers.  A few of them are capable of doing investigative pieces.

The DAR official from  Leyte took the worst beating.  At one time, the Usec bluntly told him:  ‘You are not listening.’  The man, who was nearing 60s’ and fidgeting with his survival tablets, appeared shaken, but his face remained unperturbed.  He was going to retire in a few months, and the problems he would be leaving would be his legacy to his poor successor.  Among the 13 provinces piloted for the project nationwide, Leyte came second to CamSur in backlogs.

It is difficult to fathom the thoughts of someone who has lived his all adult life following the orders of superiors.  The bureaucracy operates like that.  The top man in the pecking order gives his orders but is in turn the whipping boy of his higher organs.  I’m sure he has his own whipping boys too, people who will toe the line and do as he told them.  No orders issued, no action.  But orders must be based on correct data from the field personnel.  In the absence of that, the operation gets muddled.  This is what probably happened because all these years the exact hectarage of lands planted to coconuts have not been properly ascertained.  Hence, no orders could be issued as to which lands are really covered.

Now their bosses have issued deadlines – the so-called marching orders.  To me this is troubling because these orders are toothless.  Personnel can’t be disciplined just because deadlines have not been followed. The only disciplinary action that can be imputed is a transfer of assignment.  The case is not for the Ombudsman to take on.  So I came out of that workshop shaking my head but unbelieving.  Similar marching orders have been issued before, and what happened?  Nada.

Scepticism is in many instances a healthy attitude because it opens the mind to possibilities.  Plans could miscarry for several factors beyond one’s control.  And so we make alternative plans on a chance play of errors.

Fertility lubricant

I thought I would profit more if I spent some time bonding with my aging activist friends because for sure we could share our observations of what had transpired from perspectives that are not so  disparate.  And so our little workshop went on from 8:00 in the evening to about 2:00 early morning, slowly consuming the bottle of brandy that one of them bought the night before – which they could not finish – with a strange fruit for pulutan: durian.  An hour or so later, I noticed the palms of my hands getting reddish probably because of the feverish blood circulation the fruit was causing.  When we retired, I also noticed feeling warm (despite the aircondition) that I had a difficult time sleeping.

Doubtless, it must have been the fruit.