Typhoon Sinlaku wreaked havoc in parts of the country last week, bringing torrential rain that triggered landslides, while claiming 12 lives and injuring 20, with 12 still missing. Hundreds remain trapped in mountainous areas, waiting for help.
While Mother Nature can sometimes appear cruel, no less chilly was the response — or lack thereof — from various senior government officials to the disaster.
“The public’s pain is my pain and your suffering is my suffering,” President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) once said. But judging from his Cabinet’s response to date, the statement sounds disturbingly hollow.
While friends and families of typhoon victims mourned or searched for their loved ones in Nantou County following the collapse of Fengciou Tunnel (豐丘隧道), Ma was giving a speech in Taipei on Tuesday, jesting that when it comes to rescue operations, the division of labor goes as follows: “the central government worships Kuanyin [觀音, or Avalokiteshwara, the Buddha of Compassion] and the Jade Emperor [玉皇大帝], whereas local governments worship the Land God [土地公], whose main trait is that he answers every wish, which is the role of local governments.”
Ma’s ill-timed humor was cryptic, at best. He was either comparing the central government to a divine being, or — yet again — dumping all the responsibility onto local governments.
Ma’s lack of empathy was also on display when he attended the inauguration of Steve Chan (詹啟賢) as chairman of the Kuo Kwang Biotechnology Company (國光生物科技).
Ma told those assembled: “I am here today to attend the inauguration of chairman Chan. I won’t visit typhoon-damaged areas until tomorrow.”
We thank you, Mr President, for sharing the public’s pain.
Premier Liu Chao-shiuan’s (劉兆玄) attempt at compassion also left a lot to be desired.
While inspecting Houfeng Bridge (后豐橋) in Taichung County, which collapsed on Sunday killing one and leaving five missing, Liu looked more like someone making routine rounds than a genuinely concerned onlooker.
Spending not one extra minute than was necessary, Liu rushed back to his van, as if he’d been no more than an actor who had completed his scene on a movie set.
Even more ridiculous was Liu’s criticism of the media yesterday for being too hard on the government.
We vividly remember July 2000, when then vice premier Yu Shyi-kun cut his career short and became the shortest-serving vice premier in the nation’s history after he took responsibility for the Pachang Creek (八掌溪) incident, in which delays to rescue operations led to four deaths.
Not one Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) member objected to the resignation.
Aside from stressing standard operational procedures, no one in government has offered a public explanation for administrative negligence or inadequacies in responding to the typhoon.
If the government can’t face up to the public and account for failing to protect lives when there were obvious failures, then we shouldn’t expect much from it in other departments.
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