Is President Benigno Aquino III Southeast Asia’s George W. Bush?
Far from it.
Although Dubya was caught unaware when a plane crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, it took him just a few minutes to compose himself.
Not so with this other presidential son.
It took the popular Philippine President three hours to react to the bloodbath, a Manila Times editorial on Wednesday entitled “Who’s in charge?” said.
“And when the President did face the news cameras at around 12 in the morning of August 24 [a full twelve hours after the incident was reported] he couldn’t say exactly how many died during the incident, and even blamed the media for their faithful coverage of the event,” the editorial said.
It continued to say that “[t]his was the President’s first national crisis — the blame for which he can no longer pin on his predecessor — and the government appears to be fumbling all over.”
“Why did it take a full three hours before the Palace could respond to the crisis? Where was the much-touted Presidential Communications Group, which supposedly included a unit that could respond real-time using the latest IT?” the editorial asked.
Who knows? Was the communications group too busy tweeting?