Expectedly, the government will reinstate the police chief who was relieved from his post for claiming that 10,000 died from Supertyphoon Yolanda. I hope he is being reinstated not just because of public opinion but because it is the right thing to do.
If all government functionaries have the sense to stop the wrongs they make, discard favoritism, overcome inertiative, stop being sanctimonious, then it would be perfect to work in this earthquake, flood, lahar country. But that's another story.
Back to Soria, I'm glad they announced it before the death toll approximates his initial estimate. With 5,560 dead and around 2,000 more unaccounted for, the deaths could reach 7,500, easily tripling the government guesstimate. Soria's count will be closer to the final count than the government's first estimate.
Remember that the police chief offered his estimate right after the typhoon. he was right there on the ground with the press egging him for estimates. No other government official can come up with numbers. True, there was emotional drama in the estimate. Why shouldn't there be? The typhoon was truly catastrophic. In the tragic bombing of the World Trade Center, the death toll was estimated to be over 6,000,
more than twice the number of deaths eventually confirmed. They did not fire Mayor Giuliani on the overestimate.
The 2,000 - 2,500 deaths reported by the president, gathered from the field 5 days after the typhoon was supposedly objective and devoid of drama. Many think that the government was fudging the count because it might appear that it did not do enough to warn the people. I think so too, until it can't fudge it no more. For one, the count stalled for a while because they checked and triple checked the data. They didn't count the dead until it has been identified. Wtf?!@#$%^. A death is a death, identified or not.
Then they quibbled on the cause of death. When they found 'new dead' under the rubble, Mar Roxas speculated that they “... had just died were from recent causes. Maybe they
had a heart attack, pneumonia or something, but not because of
Yolanda.” Wtf?!@#$%^. They had a heart attack or whatever and they chose to crawl under the rubble and die? Isn't it more logical to conclude that Yolanda buried them in the rubble but they did not die immediately? That they died before they could be rescued?
Does the government really think that Yolanda did not cause the rubble under which they died?
Mar-ronic!