Of course, there is a plan

LET us be clear. President Rodrigo Roa Duterte (PRRD) was elected without any playbook. He won by throwing aside the tried and tested political/campaign playbook to everyone’s shock. Not that a playbook is no longer necessary in campaigns, politics or governing, much less in crisis or risk management. We need one but to say there is no plan in managing the pandemic is erroneous. One has to understand PRRD and how he decides, the value of gut politics or author Malcolm Gladwell’s idea of “blink” in relation to decision makers.

Blink is the power of thinking without thinking. Unconventional if one is trained in a very scientific manner. PRRD was mayor for 23 years. That will tell you the kind of lens he carries, considering, “all politics is local.” Gladwell made reference to “thin-slicing, or our ability to use limited information from a very narrow period of experience to come to a conclusion. This idea suggests that spontaneous decisions are often as good as — or even better than — carefully planned and considered ones.” On the other side of this array is the analysis/paralysis variety and we have seen in his past four years in office that PRRD prefers snap judgments. Not that it is wrong, but it is not how we are programmed to appreciate and understand big data.