What missile experts and politicos have in common

There’s too much smug sermonizing being directed against the ABS-CBN noontime show, "Wowowee", in the wake of the terrible ULTRA stampede in which 74 – mostly helpless women and children – were crushed to death and hundreds injured. The usual "cause-oriented" groups have pounced, for instance, on the show fostering a "mendicant" mentality, or its exploitation of the hunger of the poor for instant money and other grand prizes, etc. Sus, there was nothing wrong with "Wowowee" which didn’t pretend to be brilliant, but it was entertaining – comedian Willie Revillame was okay.

What made it appealing, like Lotto and other means of achieving jackpot wealth, were the prizes handed out daily. Thus, the masa and the very poor were "Wowowee’s" most enthusiastic and devoted fans – the show offered cash, premios, and other raffle goodies.

Last Saturday afternoon’s event in the Arena in the ULTRA, Pasig City, was supposed to be the Grand Slam with fabulous prizes and giveaways – from cash to houses and lots, tricycles, vehicles, you name it. What was intended to be a happy-happy spectacular turned into a nightmare, with scores of thousands trampling over each other to grab the first tickets.

It wasn’t the fault of the show itself, nor the celebrities scheduled to run it, but horribly faulty crowd control. Any way one looks at the tragedy, that’s the long and short of it. The show’s runaway popularity and the prospect of big prizes coupled with entertainment at the aborted big event was what attracted the shoving thousands and turned the intended fiesta into a fatal mess. The organizers underestimated the crowd – and where were the control barriers, stand-by clinics and ambulances?

All day long yesterday, television screens were full of the government "investigation" into what went wrong. "Security" was blamed as very deficient, and "security," in turn, tried to blame unruly elements in the crowd. When too many people are desperately pushing in, eager to grab "first" in line no matter what way, it’s the weak who get crushed in the melee, or trampled to death. Like everyone else, I hope we learn from this and do better "next time." And I trust we’ll remember the lessons learned, after the dead are tearfully buried and the wounded "patched up" in the hospital. And the bereaved families doled out some measure of consolation. But we’re a nation that forgets.

One thing: Don’t blame the poor for what happened. We must prepare to cope before any event – not wallow in post mortems afterwards.

Mob action is always unpredictable, not only in this land, but in other countries. Every day on television, we see mobs running amok (one of our own homegrown words) all over the planet.

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As for the alleged "absurdity" of enticing people into violently scrambling to win a prize, consider the so-called Lotteries in Western Europe. Everytime I go to France, or Italy, or London, I see friends who are executives in various cities, middle and upper middle class, not "poor" by any standards, queueing up or rushing to buy lottery tickets, or, in Italy, Totocalcio, etc. Why, in Los Angeles, they do the same thing.

Only last Saturday, the Financial Times of London ran an editorial headlined: "Lottery Lunacy."

The editors wrote: One of life’s oddities is that people who normally sneer at the absurdity of playing the lottery lose all reason if the jackpot is rolled over enough times. They were doing it across nine European countries yesterday, frantically buying tickets for the EuroMillions draw as if the £125 m. ($220 million) pot justified betting against odds of 76-million to one in a way that a mere £1 million did not."

"Yet, there is a kind of logic to the mania. A million pounds is indeed a lot of money but to a reasonably well-off family in Western Europe, it would not leave much change after repaying the mortgage, buying a private education for the children, setting enough aside from a decent pension and taking care of relatives and friends."

"But £125 million? We realize this is pocket change to the likes of Bill Gates but for the rest of us poor schlubs it would be life-transforming. We could give up work and set up a foundation to combat world hunger, become benefactors of the arts, save the Pacific north-west tree octopus and, finally, put in that shrubbery we have been talking about for the past five years."

The FT does grouse that "numerous studies have shown… winning the lottery seldom makes people any happier, and often leaves them downright miserable." (My comment: I’d rather win and become miserable, than be a happy loser).

The editorial concludes: "Still, just think: £125 million. Who says you are four times more likely to be eaten by a shark than land the prize? Either you win or you don’t. On that basis the odds are even."

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As direly predicted in this corner yesterday, Antipolo Congressman Ronnie Puno has been appointed Secretary of Interior and Local Government. This was announced by Executive Secretary Ed Ermita. Incidentally, more announcements will be made today.

The new DILG secretary’s brief, as I quoted Alikabok as saying, is to push the "People’s Initiative" in drafting a new Constitution, bringing local government units like the Barangays into the process. What else will be the plan of Mr. Puno? Abangan.

By coincidence, at the formal State Dinner in Malacañang Saturday night in honor of Indian President A.P. J. Abdul Kalam, who’s here on a four-day visit, I was seated with Ilocos Norte Rep. Roquito Ablan, Jr., whose nickname is "Alikabok." In this case, I hasten to say, he’s not the same as my insider source, whom I also call Alikabok.

Roquito was, in fact, surprised when I told him that Ronnie Puno would become DILG Secretary, vice Secretary Angelo T. Reyes who was transferred to Environment and Natural Resources.

Defense Secretary Avelino "Nonong" Cruz, who was also at our table, kept mum about it. Did the move catch him by surprise, too? GMA moves in mysterious ways – her "wonders" to perform. The last time I heard that expression, it referred to God.

I also had a talk with Secretary Bernardino Abes, who’s one of the least publicized but most powerful in GMA’s circle – he was an intimate of her dad as a Cabinet member in her late father’s, President Diosdado Macapagal’s administration. Abes heads the Search Committee which "spots," checks out and vets all candidates for Cabinet, Usec, Asec, and other high government positions.

Speaker Joe de Venecia, of course, was among the gliterrati assembled for that dinner.

He’ll be hosting the Indian President today. Up for discussion is how India can help modernize our electoral count. In truth, when I went to India several months ago, one of the things they demonstrated to me in New Delhi was how India, with an electorate of 670 million, conducted national elections in stages over that vast subcontinent. In every poll, the electronic voting and counting machines (made in India, by the way) enabled canvassers to announce voting results within 24 hours of the close of voting not three weeks afterwards.

In sum, if we acquire credible voting and counting machines – not the suspicious ones procured so recklessly and profligately by the Commission on Elections – we’ll be able to discard the primitive practice, easily subjected to dagdag-bawas, of the hand-counted ballot. But let’s see if the Indian scheme can be transplanted here. It requires a lot of faith on the part of the voters in the automatic machines. This is the archipelago in which such faith is in short supply.

President Abdul Kalam is also scheduled to address a Joint Session of Congress in the Plenary Hall of the House of Representatives at 2 p.m. today. Our solons will find he has a high-pitched voice, but speaks with a great deal of sense.

On the other hand, in his remarks at the State Dinner, he struggled to pronounce the name of our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, and failed miserably. It came out sounding like Rectal, but, after all, if our visiting dignitary is also called Dr. Abdul Kalam, he’s a Nuclear scientist, unlike Rizal who was a Doctor of Medicine.

When the white-haired Dr. Abdul Kalam was elected India’s President, many groused that he didn’t understand politics because he was a nuclear and "defence" scientist and a missile technologist.

On the contrary: Missile technologists and politicians are very much alike. They specialize in the politically "guided missile." The truth is that Abdul Kalam emerged as his country’s eleventh President as a dark horse candidate, being considered "non-controversial and above politics."

As usual, Joe de V. had a clever explanation for India’s success as a "pluralistic" society. He pointed out that India’s top political leader, Sonia Gandhi (of Italian descent, but all-Indian in sentiment, being the widow of the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi) "is a Christian, indeed a Roman Catholic. The President, Abdul Kalam, is a Muslim. The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh is a Sikh. The Speaker of Parliament Shri Somnath Chatterjee is a Communist. India itself is 82 percent Hindu.

Anyway, that’s Joe’s summing-up of the Indian situation.

Somehow, having covered India for many years, beginning in my callow youth, I think of India in superlatives and in extremes. Superlative progress in IT, technology and science – coupled with extreme poverty and extreme ignorance in many places. An upward, amazingly mobile society, hampered by a caste system that simply, even with modernity, refuses to go away. Wonderful scientific breakthroughs and Info-Tech innovations, billionaires by the basket with globe-girdling interests – yet lepers tugging at your sleeve in Varanasi (Benares), the Holy City through which the purifying Sacred Mother Ganges, the sacred river, flows beside the burning ghats and half-charred corpses.

India is grand – but impossible to comprehend.

Today, two of her biggest airports – New Delhi and Mumbai are half-paralyzed by four-day strikes which are still ongoing.