Noynoy (boy) to Nona (girl)
The state weather bureau Pagasa has changed the name of tropical storm Nonoy (international name Melor) into Nona - from that of a boy to that of a girl. The reason for the change? Science and Technology secretary Mario Montejo wanted to spare President Aquino, whose nickname is Noynoy, from ridicule. If that is how shallow Montejo is, he has no business being science and technology secretary.
Science and technology are very precise fields that are not given to conjecture and speculation. It is sad that such a vital department of government should be headed by an official whose willingness to overhaul an established system of assigning names to weather disturbances appears to be dictated by superstition and whimsy or worse -- a desire to kiss ass.
Unless Noynoy himself wanted the name of the storm changed, there is absolutely no reason for anyone, least of all Montejo, the secretary of the department to which the Pagasa belongs, to change anything for so flimsy a reason. Storm names may be retired, the way basketball jerseys are, for reasons that far more significant and substantial, as when the name Yolanda was.
But for Montejo on his own to change the name of a storm, for no more substantial and significant reason than that he feared his boss Noynoy might be ridiculed because of his name's closeness to the sound of a storm's name is, to me, very pathetic and not befitting the image of the man who, ironically, heads one of the most admired agencies in government.
Truth to tell, there is really nothing anyone can do, least of all Montejo, to prevent his boss from being ridiculed if he truly deserves the ridicule. Montejo must have forgotten that for months after Yolanda, and even up to today, more than two years after the strongest typhoon to hit land in recorded history nearly wiped out the city of Tacloban from the map, Noynoy continues to be ridiculed for his handling of the catastrophe. And Noynoy does not even sound anything like Yolanda.
The problem with wanting to make sipsip is that they tend to make normally learned men like chiefs of science and technology agencies fumble like little boys. Instead of trying to shield Noynoy from ridicule because of the close ring of his name to a storm's name by changing storm Nonoy to storm Nona, Montejo only succeeded in calling attention to his president and subjecting him to the ridicule he had hoped to avoid.
Instead of just a ring of closeness between Noynoy and Nonoy, Montejo has caused a sex change in meteorological nomenclature, one that could inspire and invite the naughty and mischievous jokes sought to be avoided. In fact, nobody may even have noticed the closeness between Noynoy and Nonoy until Montejo invited everyone's attention to it. Now people have noticed. Now people will be ridiculing Noynoy over Nonoy, er, Nona.
Levity aside, it does not speak well of Montejo as a member of the Cabinet to subject policy to frivolity. There is a certain sense of logic and order in the implementation and adoption of systems. One of the important and beneficial results of having systems in place is that they generate results that are authoritative and credible.
The moment you mess with an established and accepted system, especially if for no other reason than just to make sipsip, you not only destroy your own credibility, you destroy the credibility of the entire system. Now the storm-naming system of the Pagasa has come under a storm cloud of doubt. The weather bureau must never attempt to name a storm Kris or the entire Filipino nation might think Montejo has messed up again.
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