Fillipino police chief fired for predicting 10, 000 deaths. Why?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Of course this article doesn’t say he was fired for that reason, but it seems to assume that it was.

While I can understand the authorities having an official message put out for say, an ongoing case that can be affected by what people speculate about it, I don’t understand how the death toll of a weather incident that cannot be affected by the speculation of the police chief is harmful enough to require his firing. If he predicted 10000 or 50000, and he was way off, so what?

First of all, realistically, its not going to hurt anyone. Some people might look at that and despair, but is that any more than despair than people would have over knowing a record breaking typhoon made landfall? Are we firing him to spare the poor feelings of people that might look at that number and, I dunno, kill themselves or stop looking for survivors, or take out a mortgage on their house to finance a coffin building business? Its idiotic, it doesn’t harm anyone to speculate about the number of deaths!

Second, given weather patterns, earthquakes, and other natural phenomenon, people know its a crapshoot to try to predict anything about it. If the Filipino police department is worried this is going to make them lose face or lose credibility, I think in this case, it doesn’t rise to a disciplinary level. Its not like he gave out information to a wanted criminal to make him hide better, he’s just speculating on how many people there would be dead!

Lastly, if he’s being disciplined for simply talking about it when he’s not supposed to, then I’d have to question their internal policy. He’s the national police chief superintendent, which sounds like a pretty lofty position. If he spoke out of turn and didn’t want for an official government spokesman, so what? Tell him not to do it again! But firing him is too much for such a small infraction if it was indeed a violation of police internal policy. The important thing is that he didn’t do it maliciously (so far as we know), this was a genuine mistake.

I think what should have happened is absolutely no discipline on him. Under promise, over deliver, that should be the motto to follow in this case. In fact, they should commend him and spin it like the Filipino police, owing to their great training and preparation, were able to help make sure that 10000 didn’t die!

Am I wrong here? Would other Dopers have done the same and fired this guy? I have a personal pet peeve about discipline meted out due to a violation of the official message when that violation was harmless.

2

I do think that a government official whose job is to communicate with the public should not just be making shit up, as appears to be the case with this guy. Firing him over just this one thing would still probably be an overreaction, but we don’t know that this was the only thing he’s done wrong in his tenure in that position. It could be that this was the latest in a string of fuck ups since this guy was made captain.

3

I tend to look at the intent. Was he doing this to cause panic or to be malicious? If not, I would be hard pressed to discipline him over it. What probably happened is that he was giving an interview to some press and somebody asked him how many deaths they could expect.

In situations like this, I would really rather the default answer no be “No comment” or “Let my press secretary give you the official answer that will tell you nothing”. I think its ok that he just made up a number if that’s his own speculation, what’s the harm? I’m totally fine with people making shit up if there’s no discernible harm.

4

Public officials in positions of authority in times of public crisis and emergency should be “making shit up” no matter what. It could cause panic, loss of faith in the government, and loss of investment dollars. Regardless of whether you think this case is a fireable offence, I’d rather hear “No Comment” or “I’ll have to get back to you on that” than making shit up.

5

Misinforming people is a type of harm, especially when your job is to inform them. And the 10k number has been pretty widely reported. Even if its walked back later, I suspect large numbers of people will remember that as the death-toll.

And in disasters, its important people have faith those in authority know what they’re talking about. Being wrong about a death-toll by a factor of four may not lead to direct harm, but the impression that the gov’t just pulls stuff out of their butts when it comes to reacting to hurricanes and the like may still do so.

Plus, I’m not really sure “removed from his post” is synonymous with “fired”. I usually think of it as meaning moved to a different (presumably less public facing) position or put on leave, rather then being kicked out altogether.

6

I’ve been wondering where that figure came from. It seemed absurdly high, especially considering the actual body counts that came in.

7

I agree that people shouldn’t just make shit up for fun, however, this was a speculation on the estimated number of deaths. Speculation is, by definition, made up, and often wrong.

Say someone asks me when the next 6.0+ earthquake in LA is going to hit. Nobody knows that, so I speculate based on my completely random knowledge that such earthquakes occur every X years, so the next time it’ll happen would be before 2019. That’s speculation, that’s made up, but its not malicious or designed to deceive. I think the problem here is that I see the number of deaths from this typhoon as totally unknowable, so its ok at that point if someone thinks they know based on whatever knowledge he has.

Maybe this guy knows that, in general, given the area it will hit and the speed of the winds, historically the storm would kill up to 10000 people. Or he read somewhere he forgot that it could do that much. Or maybe his grandma told him. I’m fine with speculating on an unknowable if its truly unknowable. If he’s wrong, so what? I don’t think it’ll cause people to lose faith or scare off investors for the reasons I’ve already listed above, and certainly not enough for him to lose his job or position.

If his bosses don’t like it, tell him to knock it off next time but its a minor infraction at best, like wearing your uniform the wrong way.

8

I don’t think you’re getting how big a deal this is. It’s not a slap on the wrist offence; it’s pretty much the opposite of what an authority figure is supposed to do during an emergency. It’s basic crisis management - and the fact that this guy doesn’t know that is a pretty major screw up.

9

ISTM like many officials that have been interviewed in the aftermath of this event are on the defensive regarding the body count. Perhaps there is bias by the media sensationalizing the numbers, and these people are just guessing anyway. The President of the Philippines seemed to discount the 10K number strongly as well in his interview. Maybe they (the media, and the officials) should focus on getting more help to the living now than speculating on the number of dead, but the bad news is what seems to make headlines these days.

The 10K number is stuck in people’s minds for now, and the media and officials have to waste time trying to explain why it is not that. I remember 9/11 and some speculated that each tower had 25K people in it when they went down - we now know the number was much smaller. I am confident that will be the case here as well, not withstanding this official being removed from his post.

10

But I don’t see how that is harmful. So what if people think its 10k?

11

I dunno. Perhaps the country does not want to be seen as weak, poor, or unprepared, so the number of dead matters to those in official roles. Maybe they are thinking “10,000 dead happens in places like Bangladesh, not here in MY country”. I do not think it is necessarily harmful, but it does seem to distract from other, more important issues at hand. IMHO.

12

So people who think 10,000 people are dead may rush to the area to find/help their relatives, tying up the travel and diverting resources from where they are needed besides worrying them unnecessarily. Aid agencies will be sending more materials to the area for dealing with bodies and disease control than is needed. The populace will lose faith in government pronouncements and may not obey things like evacuation orders.

In times of disaster bad information can be a danger to life and limb.